Sharon and I were wandering through Door County, Wisconsin, on a beautiful autumn day when we chanced upon this recipe. The tourists were gone by now. We bought smoked white fish in Gills Rock, where Sharon’s relative Willie WEIBORG once owned a big home (still there as a bed and breakfast), a warehouse and fishing boat. We had a lunch of ham sandwiches, split pea soup and cold beer at Al Johnson's, where six goats were still feeding atop its grass roof. We drove by her family’s original farm of 40 acres, just outside of Ellison Bay. We even visited two graveyards looking for long lost relatives! In a gift store Sharon found a German cookbook and in it I found this recipe, which I had never seen before. It is truly simplicity itself and a wonderful combination of tastes.
6 large tomatoes
6 eggs
1 tablespoon butter
salt and pepper to taste
nutmeg or curry as you like
garnish of parsley, lettuce, or toast
Preparation: 1. Slice off the top of the tomatoes and scoop out the pulp, making space for a whole egg. 2. Rub the insides with salt and pepper to taste, put in a nugget of butter, and set the tomatoes inside of a shallow greased baking dish. 3. Crack an egg into each tomato, sprinkle with either curry or nutmeg (depending on the menu). 4. Bake in a preheated oven at 425F for 20-30 minutes until the eggs are nicely poached. The juice and butter in the tomatoes acts as a poaching liquid and it takes a bit of time for the tomatoes to heat up so they poach the eggs.
Presentation: For a breakfast I would suggest using nutmeg and setting the tomatoes on a slice of toast. For a dinner curry would do nicely, set on a bed of lettuce. In either case garnish the top with a parsley sprig.
Notes: This dish retains its heat wonderfully. You can time these to be first out of the oven and they will still be warm by serving time.
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