Eggs Baked in Whole Tomatoes -- a recipe from the The Egg Basket of the World

In 1879 Lyman Byce and Isaac Dias invented the first reliably working incubator for hatching eggs in Petaluma, California.  This sparked the creation of egg ranches in the area and, by 1917, Petaluma was considered the "undisputed" world leader of the chicken and egg industry.

The town embraced this and unabashedly promoted itself and its industry as "The Egg Basket of the World", offering a National Egg Day which included a parade with an Egg Queen and her court of attendant chicks, and decorating the town with giant plaster egg baskets and roosters.  In 1918, Petaluma reported producing 16 million dozen eggs.

In 1927, the Petaluma High School Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) published The Egg Basket Cook Book to help finance the PTA activities as well as promote the industry and share their egg-cooking knowledge.

The book is basically what I call a "ladies' group" cookbook because most (if not all) the recipes were submitted by Petaluma locals.  I value these recipes because no one is going to submit a recipe that they think is subpar, knowing their neighbors might try them.  The recipes are tried and true.

I chose the "Eggs Baked in Whole Tomatoes" recipe in the "From the Egg Basket" section on page 27.  This section also addresses the food value of eggs and methods of cooking them.  What is amusing about the entire book is that no recipe has "eggs" in them -- the word is always written as "EGGS".

Eggs Baked in Whole Tomatoes  -- M.P.

3 tomatoes

3 EGGS

salt and pepper

3 tablespoons buttered crumbs

3 slices of bacon

Breakfast!

Scoop out centers of large ripe tomatoes.  Break an EGG into each, season and cover with crumbs and lay a slice of bacon on each.  Bake in a moderate oven.  Turn bacon once while cooking.  Place under broiler to brown bacon.

My Notes

I noticed the pattern of one egg and one slice of bacon per tomato.  I only needed two servings, so I reduced everything down to enough for two.

The oven was set to 350 degrees F.  

I sliced the top of the tomatoes off with a knife then used a spoon to scoop out the centers.

Each tomato was set in a glass baking dish before I put the egg inside.

I didn't bother with buttered crumbs as I figured the bacon would drop grease onto them.  I cut the bacon slice in half and put the pieces as an "X" over the top.

I baked the tomatoes for 25 minutes.  See comments below.

Halfway through.  Time to turn the bacon.

Done. (Almost)

The Verdict

I served it with toast and juice.

A tidy breakfast.

Twenty-five mintues was not enough time.  The tomato was somewhat cooked, but the egg was raw.  

So I tried again, turning the temperature down to 325 degrees and cooking for 45 minutes.  The tomatoes were cooked through (skin split and the rest was soft) and the eggs were cooked.  But the yolks were solid, and I really wanted runny yolks.

I kept trying through several attempts.  I kept getting either raw eggs (325 degrees and 35 minutes) or solid yolks.

My observation is that the timing depends on the thickness of the tomato.  If the walls are thin, everything cooks quickly.  Thick walls take more time for the heat to get to the egg.  Don't be fooled by the top of the egg looking cooked!

Success, but it took a while.  The last time I tried it was with thick-walled tomatoes.  They cooked for 45 minutes at 325 degrees.  This gave basically soft-cooked eggs.  The whites were cooked but not hard and the yolks were soft but not runny.  The tomato was cooked through and soft.

I served it in bowls because the tomato released a lot of juice when it was cut.  Tasty!

It is not necessary to turn the bacon.  Just broil it for a minute or two at the end of the cooking cycle and it is done.  (I like chewy bacon.)

A large tomato can be scooped out so much that two eggs will fit inside it.  This takes longer to cook.

Make sure the tomato is shaped to stand upright when the stem end is removed.  Roma tomatoes are not very good for this.

If you want to read more about the history of Petaluma, see this book:

Heig, Adair.  History of Petaluma:  A California River Town.  Scottwall Associates.  Petaluma. 1982,

which you can access online by clicking here:  Heig.