Eggs baked in Ham and Potato Hash - Potato Week # 1

A week of school break passed by so quickly. Now that Lydia is in kindergarden, I do feel the spirit of school holidays, the breath of relief that I do not need to wake up that early to prepare her, hahahaha!!

Well, I didn't go anywhere except back to my mom's for a few days and meeting up with Lena over for lunch. I didn't take any pictures with her, except that to tell you, she's a very nice lady. She came to pick me up at my mom's as I didn't drive that time, wasn't allowed to! We chatted for almost.... 4 hours. Hahaha, if it's not for the rain, it'll be even longer. Thanks Lena for the tarts, my nieces walloped every piece except for one that I ate. Hahah!

I had been sewing and sewing during the school break. 14 windows and glass doors needs to be adorned with curtains, which brings to 14 pairs of curtains and 13 pairs of screens, which comes to 27 pairs = 54 pieces of curtains!!! Crazy? Yes. My SIL asked me, why didn't I just pay to get it done. Gosh, if you have invested in a good sewing machine and yet pay thousands to get the curtains... then the machine would've gone wasted. I only used less than RM600 for 54 pieces of curtains. Less than 10% of what I would've been charged to get it done.

Many years back, I bought a book at Doulos. If you have no idea what Doulos is, it’s a ship that sells books. Yes, you go on the ship and buy books!!! It was only RM10 for a 256 colour filled country kitchen cookbook. A steal, so I didn’t really look through.

That time, I wasn’t exposed much to western food, besides what fast food outlets offer or, Steak houses(The Ship, Victoria Station, and the rest), so called western food that are all steaks, potatoes and boiled vege. When I flipped the book when I got home, I was only interested in 1 recipe, Duck Casserole with Chestnuts. The rest seemed unappetizing to me. Casseroles and everything jumbled up in one pan is not my thing that time.

Now, as I grew older, and as my cooking knowledge increases through blogging and surfing, I seem to go beyond the looks and look into the recipes.
Few days back (or months back), while chatting with Pei-Lin, I flipped through this book again, and I just found myself mesmerized by so so many of the recipes in a book I once made a white elephant.

Here’s the first recipe I tried from this white elephant that will now be made a treasure trove.

Eggs baked in Ham and Potato Hash
Recipe source: Country Cook's Companion by Liz Trigg
Servings: 4

200gm cooked ham (I used ham chips, and requested for the thicker chips)
200gm cooked russet potatoes (2 medium sized ones)
1 can of corn nibbles (the large one, I added this, because it's on the brink of expiry. It wasn't in the recipe itself)

3 pieces sliced cheddar cheese (That's the only cheese I have)
1 medium sized onion (about 70gm)
2 Tbsp Ketchup (I forgot to put, and it'll definately taste better with this)
200ml whipping cream (I put this in last minute because I was worried about the dish being dry)
4 eggs
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
50gm butter
1 heaped tsp chopped fresh rosemary (I had a pot of this, had**)
Some parsley for garnish

Method:

1. Dice ham, potatoes, cheese and chop the onion.
2. Preheat oven at 160/180
3. In a pan, melt half the butter and and pour the butter into a 8 inch baking dish/4 small dishes. Swirl the butter around and pour back into the pan.
4. Put in chopped rosemary and let it heat for few seconds. Pour rosemary infused butter into a bowl, Set aside.
5. Melt remaining butter and cook the onions until soft.
6. Pour the onions into a large bowl and put in ham, potatoes, cheese, and ketchup.
7. Taste. If not salty enough, season with salt and pepper.
8. Spread the mixture in the buttered dish/dishes.
9. Make 4 wells in the dish/dishes (picture above), drizzle in the whipping cream and bake for 15 minutes.
10. Remove from oven and pour egg into the wells and and drizzle the rosemary infused butter over the dish.
11. Bake for another 15-20 minutes until eggs are set.
12. Garnish with parsley and serve.

My kids loved this dish. Especially Lydia

Picture taken months ago, they do look older now.