Edible Ramekins

The tartines did it. All this tartine-ing that has been going on of late… it’s gotten me suddenly hooked on sandwiches. I mean, I do normally eat sandwiches fairly regularly. My “regularly” being maybe once or twice a week, at least where sandwiches are concerned. Simply because that’s about how frequently the urge to eat a sandwich strikes me! But yesterday, all I could think about was having a sandwich. And as I was staring at the big crusty rye and potato roll that was sitting in the bread box, wondering what sort of sandwich I wanted to make for my lunch, the idea struck me… I knew exactly what I was going to make, or at least attempt to make!

When Clotilde made her first tantalizing post about oeuf cocotte back in December, I was very inspired and tempted to try out and experiment with my own versions of oeuf cocottes. But alas, I was stopped by one reason… I do not own a single ramekin. (Sorry, Clotilde!) But it is true. Incredible though that may be. And so, I put off making an oeuf cocotte until I could go get myself some lovely, pretty ramekins. Well, the weeks turned into months, and still no ramekins.

Until yesterday.

Yesterday afternoon, as I stared at my rye and potato roll, I suddenly saw a ramekin! That’s it! I would use the roll as a sort of ramekin. Afterall, bread rolls are regularly used as soup bowls are they not? So why not a ramekin? And hey, it’s even edible… one less thing to wash up! A girl couldn’t ask for more!

In fact, I made not one, but two “cocotte-in-a-roll”. Heh! We’ve all had, I’m sure, “chicken in a biscuit” (oh! how I used to love those), so now I present, erm… “chicken in a roll”?! (Cocotte in French being “a cute word for a hen”, according to Clotilde).

I ended up using both the rye and potato roll as well as a small wholemeal soft dinner roll. Why the latter? Well, I really wanted to use quail’s eggs, which I adore, in my oeuf cocotte, but they would be “lost” in the much larger rye and potato roll. I also didn’t want to put in multiple quail’s eggs, as I preferred the cleaner appearance of just one egg yolk peeking out from the roll. And the only smaller roll I had was the soft dinner roll. I was a little concerned as to whether it was too soft to hold the liquids in, but it worked just fine.

• The tops of both rolls were cut off, and the centers scooped out, leaving just enough shell to form a sturdy “ramekin”. The crusty roll was obviously sturdier and I could remove pretty much almost all the insides, leaving more space to fill up with the delectable fillers. I was more conservative in scooping out the soft wholemeal roll. (The crumbs were reserved for the salmon cakes that I’m planning to make.)

• Dijon mustard was spread all around the insides of the rye roll, with careful attention given to make sure all surfaces were nicely covered. (I love mustard, but this can be easily substituted for other spreads, even horseradish or something). I spread the wholemeal roll with butter – just to see the difference in tastes.

• Next, the fillers. A large onion, cut into strips, was sautéed in about one tablespoon of butter until soft, before some sliced fresh shitakes were added. When the mushrooms were nicely tender and fragrant (a few minutes later), in went the strips of ham. Any flavor and type of ham would work, but I think thinly sliced ham might work somewhat better than thick sliced ones in terms of balance of texture. Salt and pepper were added to taste and the pan was deglazed with a little wine (white or even Chinese rice wine would work).

• The filling was placed inside the prepared rolls, followed by some grated French Emmental cheese.

• Finally, an egg was broken into a bowl, and then carefully slid into the roll. Here, a minor “accident” occurred. I had put a little too much filling and cheese into the rye roll. Room was a little short for the egg, and so some of the egg white spilt out and slid down the sides of the roll, and created a small mess. Oh well. At least the bread roll got an unintended egg white wash, which is not a bad thing.

• Similarly, a small quail’s egg was slid into the wholemeal roll.

• Onto a baking sheet went both rolls, and into a pre-heated oven – approximately 160C. At this point, I wish I could tell you a fairly accurate time that the rolls were in the oven for, but I can’t, simply because I didn’t look at the clock nor used a timer. I simply popped the rolls in, kept an eye on them and just took them out when the egg whites were set and the yolks still runny. Unfortunately, this is normally how I cook, unless I was planning to write the recipe down or something. Heh. I almost didn’t remember the temperature at which I set the oven – I just turned the knob until it felt instinctively right for heating a bread roll and cooking an egg at the same time. I think it was round about a “6” on my oven knob, so that makes it round about 160C. And I think the wholemeal roll was in there for approximately 5-9 minutes, I’m guessing. While the larger rye roll was probably in the oven for maybe between 15-19 minutes. Sorry, I wish I could give better indications than that.

The temperature worked very well I thought. It was low enough that the bread didn’t burn (which was one of my concerns), and gave enough time for the eggs to cook nicely, without the yolks turning hard before the whites had time to set.

It felt so good to see the runny yolk starting to ooze out as I cut into the potato and rye roll cocotte. And of course, I had to stop to take a picture! I just love eggs with runny yolks, don’t you? The whites were opague and largely firm, with some areas that were still slightly soft and “jiggly” – just the way I like them! The bread was very crispy and crunchy with only the top edges of the “opening” being a little dried out.

It does look a little messy with the runny yolk running (what else would runny yolks do?) everywhere. But it tasted really good.

The small wholemeal soft roll came out just as well...

The bread was crispy on the outside but still soft on the inside. I had accidentally punctured the yolk a little bit whilst transferring the egg from bowl to roll, but otherwise, it looked pretty good. My only complaints… firstly, because the roll was rather small, there wasn’t much filling; secondly, the quail’s egg was so tiny that, whilst eating the sandwich, I had wished for it to have been a little more eggy. (And if aesthetics matter, the lighter yellow of the quail’s egg yolk was slightly less visually appealing than that of the regular egg).

So, a larger roll that can accommodate more filling seems to work better. Plus, much as I love the idea of quail’s eggs, chicken eggs seem to work better, unless multiple quail’s eggs are put into the roll. And oh, the mustard works better than just plain butter.

Some Other Notes:
• I think some crème fraiche or sour cream would have been a very delicious addition.

• Crispy bacon strips instead of ham would also have worked wondrously.

• I really wished I had some chopped fresh cilantro/coriander to add into the fillings. That would have added a really nice fragrant layer of flavor to the sandwich.

• Using Chinese style seasonings in the filling would have been very interesting… fish sauce, hoisin sauce or oyster sauce…

• The next time around, I would also probably prefer to go with a sharp cheddar or some other more strongly flavored cheese. The emmental, which was the only thing I had in the fridge, didn’t seem to have strong enough flavors, and didn’t add much to the sandwich flavor-wise, other than the soft texture of melted cheese.

• It would also be interesting to experiment with softer cheeses like brie, camembert or boursin too.

• I would also probably adjust the fillings-to-cheese ratio the next time around. This time it was maybe approximately 3:1, simply because I was a little over enthusiastic in adding the filling, and there wasn’t much room left for the cheese, and I was too lazy to remove some of the filling! I’m thinking a ratio of maybe 2:1 might work nicely.

• A tapenade spread sounds interestingly flavorful too.

• As I was eating the sandwich, my mind was racing with ideas of what I would like to try. An assorted mushrooms (enoki mushrooms, golden mushrooms, oyster mushrooms, button mushrooms, cepes…) version with onion marmalade sounds absolutely divine!

• Smoked salmon, chives or dill and cream cheese…

• Even canned sardines in tomato sauce, with onions and strips of fresh red chilli!

• Or maybe a meat version – made from leftover beef stew, braised beef shanks etc. Ooh, yum!

• And I love the idea of a sweet, dessert variation – imagine… thin slices of camembert cheese arranged with alternate layers of thin slices of gorgonzola and thin slices of pears or even nectarines (as inspired by some of the tartine entries), with generous sprinklings of chopped walnuts, pecans or almonds. I think this would make a great picnic item – place the “top” back on the bread roll, wrap the whole thing in tin foil and pop it in the oven, and it should still be slightly warm when it is unwrapped at the picnic.

I have to say, I quite like my edible ramekins. I can even change the flavor of the ramekins as I choose.

Copyright © 2004 Renee Kho. All Rights Reserved.
Please contact me for permission to copy, publish, distribute or display any of the images or text contained in this article.