Oeufs Cocotte with Fresh Garden Herbs

Start with the eggs. They should come from hens that live outside, scratch in the dirt, and eat what chickens are meant to eat. You will know them by their yolks: deep orange, almost sunset-colored, standing proud in the shell. These eggs have aliveness. They taste like something.

Oeufs cocotte is French home cooking at its most honest. You butter a small dish, crack in an egg, add a spoonful of crème fraîche, and bake it in a water bath until the white just sets and the yolk stays liquid. That is the whole technique. When the ingredient is right, you get out of the way.

The herbs matter as much as the eggs. Snip them moments before serving. Chives, tarragon, chervil, parsley: the classic fines herbes of French cooking. If you grow even one pot of herbs on a windowsill, you understand why fresh ones cannot be replaced by dried. The oils are volatile. The fragrance is fleeting. Cut them and use them while they are still alive.