Floating on Eggs in Clouds

Breakfast, oh, the headache. Yes, it isn’t hard to come up with something to eat for that “most important meal of the day”. Just slather jam/butter/peanut butter and/or honey on bread of your choice, grab a cuppa joe and go! Now, don’t get us wrong… we love honey and butter on bread. But once in a while, don’t we all crave a little indulgence, that special meal to kick-start the weekend when we have a little more time on our hands to eat?

Now on those days, eggs are always a treat when they make an appearance at the breakfast table, especially with the yolks all oozy and sticky and runny. Pure gold! But if you are tired of the usual poached, boil or fried affair, let us introduce you to Eggs in Clouds. It’s stunning. Imagine runny yolks nestling delicately in the centre of a cloud of fluffy egg whites… yeah.

You can use the oven for this, especially if you are preparing brekkie for a larger group of people, but for just us two, the airfryer works a treat. We like to keep our Eggs in Clouds simple and hero the yolk, but for a pimped up version, check out Rachael Ray’s (her’s includes oven deets for those without the airfryer).

It’s breakfast time!

Ingredients

• 4 eggs
• 1/4 cup parmesan, finely grated
• Salt
• Pepper
• 1 tbsp dill oil (alternatively, you can also use fresh dill)
• Chili flakes for garnish (we use Japanese Shichimi)

Instructions

1. With the eggs, separate the yolks from the whites. Take care that the bowl for the whites is clean and dry, and not a single drop of yolk enters the bowl. (To keep them intact and to make it easier later, we keep each yolk in its own tiny cup.)
2. Add a pinch of salt to the whites. With an electric beater, beat the mixture until stiff, then quickly fold in the parmesan. If using fresh dill, you can incorporate the herb at this point.
3. Dollop the mixture onto baking paper, creating four fluffy cloud-like mounds. Create a well in each 'cloud', big enough to hold one yolk each.
4. Preheat the airfryer at 200°C. Cook the egg whites for 2 to 3 minutes, until they are slightly browned.
5. Carefully drop a yolk into the centre of each 'cloud', and return to the airfryer to cook for a further 2 minutes, until the yolks are set but still runny.
6. When serving, season the eggs with pepper and salt, drizzle dill oil and sprinkle some chili flakes on top.

Tip

 

To make it easier to transfer in and out of the airfryer, as well as to create beautiful clouds with the depression in the centre for the yolks, line mini tart trays with baking paper and spoon the egg white mixture into those.