Flutterby™! : Breakfast

An experiment. Before trying, see the notes at the end about starch levels in the soufflé; next time I try this I'll be upping them considerably, and I need to do some testing with egg yolks, assorted starches, and an instant-read thermometer to get a better feel for thickening.

• 2 potatoes
• 3 eggs
• 1/4 t. cream of tartar
• 1 14.5 oz can roasted tomatoes with green chilis
• 1 onion, diced
• 1/2 cup diced ham
• 4 tbs olive oil
• 1 tbs butter
• Small amount grated cheese (sharp cheddar or parmesan, for my tastes)

Pre-heat oven to 375°F. Peel and grate potatoes. In both hands, squeeze the water out of the grated potatoes into a bowl, reserve 1 tablespoon potato and wrap the rest in plastic to retard browning (greying)? Pour off liquid from the potato water, keeping the starch that's settled.

Separate the eggs. Beat the whites and the cream of tartar to soft peaks. Take 2 tbs of the tomatoes, mostly juice, and whip with the yolks and 2 tbs olive oil (kind of makes a mayonnaise like structure).

Heat a frying pan and cook the onion to take the edge off it.

Heat remaining tomatoes to a simmer, whisk in potato starch, 1 tablespoon potatoe and yolk/tomato juice mixture, continue to cook until it thickens. Add onion and diced ham.

Move tomato mixture to a large bowl, fold in yolks, put in a 6-7" soufflé pan and toss in the oven.

Set a timer for 20 minutes. Go do something else.

When timer goes off, heat 1 tb olive oil and 1/2 tb butter on a skillet. When the butter begins to brown, sprinkle grated potatoes in skillet, turn heat to medium, press potatoes down and allow to cook, undisturbed, for 7-8 minutes. Turn potato layer out onto plate, add remaining olive oil and butter, and put the potato layer back in to the skillet, uncooked side down, for another 6 minutes.

Sprinkle cheese on half of potato layer and fold in half over layer.

Remove the soufflé from the oven, cut the potato/cheese hash browns in wedges, scoop out soufflé on to plate, garnish with chopped fresh tomato, fresh basil in a chiffonade, and hash brown wedges.

Next time I do this I'll put more starch (which could just be a tb or two more grated potato) in the tomato mixture, and I need to play with figuring out the exact temperature to bring the tomato mixture to to give me maximum binding from the yolk and the starches, as this was just a little bit too wet.