Cacio e Pepe Eggs

It’s no secret that I adore eggs…   So when I find a new way to cook them I’m like a kid in a candy store.  A fabulous friend shared a post by Food52 on all the different ways to cook eggs and one piqued my interest. 

That was cooking eggs in (Heavy) Double Cream or as they eloquently call it Caramelized Cream Eggs (via Ideas in Food) They described it as life-changing in the way you cook eggs and in fact the way that you look at ingredients.  They dropped the word luxuriously and I was completely sold.  

I’ve cooked the eggs a couple of time exactly as Food52 suggested and each time it was divine… But it got me thinking about flavouring the cream with things and the first thing that came to mind was Cacio e Pepe. With that creamy black pepper laced sauce… I love it so…

So this take on Eggs in Caramelised Cream was born.  It has no cheese in it… but when the cream caramelises it takes on a very similar flavour and its DIVINE! 

Cacio e Pepe Fried Eggs

All the quantities are completely eyeballed.   So just go with your gut.  

Double (Heavy) Cream
Eggs
Freshly ground coarse Black Pepper 
Sea Salt & Garlic Powder

Grab a good-quality nonstick frying pan that’s large enough to hold the number of eggs you’d like to cook, without leaving lots of extra room. Mine is 24cm in circumference and it holds two to three eggs perfectly. 

In a cold pan, pour enough double cream into the bottom to make a thin layer. I like to add a bit, then swirl it around… then add more if it’s not covered.  You want a slick of cream not a pool of it. 

Sprinkle the cream with salt, garlic powder and coarsely ground pepper.  Then carefully add the eggs without breaking the yolks. 

Let’s get cooking… the heat to low-medium to start cooking the eggs.  You want to see a little action around the edges of the pan… but nothing too vigorous.. If the egg whites start to bubble up pierce them to release the steam. 

The cream will bubble and steam.  It will eventually split for the most part into liquid butterfat and butter solids. This is when the caramelisation starts to happen.

When the egg whites are almost set and the cream has mostly become butter and butter solids, turn the heat off and let the residual heat finish cooking.   I like to let it sit for a minute or two before I carefully loosen the eggs from the pan and slide them on the plate. 

The bottoms should be caramelized, the whites tender and cream-coated, the yolk will be a bit jammy, but not set.  

Thank me later.