Day 145: In Purgatory

Today, the hubby came home for lunch and I made him a dish I've been curious about for a while: Eggs in Purgatory. It's a pretty basic dish: eggs cooked in pasta sauce. That doesn't mean, to a certain extent, that I didn't screw it up. It also doesn't mean that the outcome wasn't good.

You see, I put in too much pasta sauce. The most basic recipe I could find said heat up one cup pasta sauce, crack in two eggs, cover and cook until whites set. Okay. I remembered most of that. I just didn't remember the proportions. So I dumped in a whole jar of sauce (2 1/2 cups) and cracked four eggs onto that, which meant they had more of a tomatoey jacuzzi than was intended--not too much more, but more. It was actually a little scary to watch them as they cooked, with the sauce bubbling up through the whites--it was more like eggs in hell.

But then they started to look like poached eggs, and I grated some parmesan on top and served them.

This was a first for me in a couple of ways. First, I've never had eggs in purgatory. But more importantly, I've never had an egg cooked to this particular level: solid whites, partially runny yolks. It was a little scary. This was probably one of the best ways I could have started, though, since I could sort of hide my yolks in the sauce. Wimpy, I know, but you've got to start somewhere, right? So one day, when I have my first eggs benedict, I won't be afraid of the yolks.