MANY people do not know a well-boiled egg by sight or taste, yet
a _fresh_ egg, boiled to a nicety, is one of the simplest, most
nutritious of breakfast dishes.
Boiled Eggs.
Select the cleanest eggs, wash them well, and lay them in lukewarm
water for five minutes. Have ready on the fire a saucepan of water on a
fast boil, and in quantity sufficient to cover the eggs entirely. Into
this put one egg at a time with a spoon, depositing each gently on the
bottom, and quickly.
_Four minutes_ boils an egg thoroughly, if one likes the white set and
the yolk heated to the centre. _Five minutes_ makes the white firm and
sets the yolk. _Ten minutes_ boils both hard.
Take up the eggs with a split spoon or wire whisk. If you have no
regular egg dish, lay a heated napkin in a deep dish or bowl (also
warmed), put in the eggs as in a nest, cover up with the corners of the
napkin, and send directly to the table. They harden in the shells if
left long without being broken.
The best way to manage a boiled egg at the table is the English way of
setting it upright in the small end of the egg-cup, making a hole in
the top large enough to admit the egg-spoon, and eating it from the
shell, seasoning as you go on. Heat and taste are undoubtedly better
preserved by this method than by any other. Those who cannot afford
gold-washed spoons, can procure pretty ivory ones at a trifling cost,
or small teaspoons will serve the purpose.
Spoons smeared with eggs should be laid to soak in _cold_ water
directly you have finished using them.
Custard Eggs.
Put the washed eggs in a saucepan of cold water and let them just come
to a boil, then take them up.
Or, lay them in a hot tin pail, cover them with boiling water, put the
top on the pail and leave them on the kitchen table for five minutes.
Drain off the water, pour on more _boiling_ hot and replace the top.
Wrap a hot towel about the pail, and leave it four minutes before
dishing the eggs. They will be like a soft custard throughout, and more
digestible than if cooked in any other way.
Poached, or Dropped Eggs.
Into a clean frying-pan, pour plenty of boiling water, and a
teaspoonful of salt. Let it boil steadily, not violently. Wipe a cup
dry, break an egg into it, and pour, very cautiously and quickly, on
the surface of the water. Avoid spreading or breaking it. It will sink
to the bottom for an instant, but if the water is boiling hot, will
rise soon and be cooked in about three and a half minutes. Do not put
more than three into the pan at one time, or they will run into one
another.
Take them up with a perforated skimmer and lay on a hot, flat dish
in which a teaspoonful of butter has been melted. If the whites have
ragged edges, trim neatly with a sharp knife. When all are done, pepper
and salt lightly, put a bit of butter on each egg and send up _very
hot_.
Eggs on Toast.
Cut out with a sharp-edged tumbler or a cake cutter as many round
slices of stale bread as there are eggs to be cooked. Toast these
nicely, butter thinly; cover the bottom of a heated dish with them, and
pour on each a tablespoonful of boiling water. Set in the plate-warmer
or an open oven while you poach eggs as directed in the last receipt.
Lay each when done on a round of toast, pepper, salt and butter, and
serve.
Eggs on Savory Toast.
Toast rounds of stale bread as directed in preceding receipt, but
instead of moistening them with hot water, pour upon them, as they
lie in the dish, two tablespoonfuls of boiling gravy to each slice.
A half-cupful of gravy left over from yesterday’s roast or stew
skimmed free of fat, heated, thinned with a very little boiling water,
well-seasoned, then strained and boiled up quickly, makes this a
tempting dish.
Poach as many eggs as you have rounds of toast, and lay on these, with
pepper, salt and bits of butter.
Scrambled or Stirred Eggs.
Nine eggs.
One tablespoonful of butter.
Half a teaspoonful of salt.
A little pepper.
Half a teaspoonful of chopped parsley very fine.
Break the eggs altogether in a bowl. Put the butter in a clean
frying-pan and set it on the range. As it melts, add pepper, salt and
parsley. When it hisses, pour in the eggs, and begin at once to stir
them, scraping the bottom of the pan from the sides toward the centre,
until you have a soft, moist mass just firm enough not to run over the
bottom of the heated dish on which you turn it out. Make it into a neat
mound. Some people prefer it without the parsley.
In serving _everything_, be careful that the rims of the dishes are
perfectly clean. The effect of the most delicious viand is spoiled by
drops or smears of food on the vessel containing it.
If you heap your scrambled eggs on a platter and lay parsley-sprigs
around, making a green fringe or border for the yellow hillock, you
have an elegant dish. Study to make plain things pretty when you can.
Bacon and Eggs.
Fry as many slices of ham, or what is known as breakfast-bacon, as
there are eggs to be cooked. Have the clean frying-pan warm, but not
hot, when the meat goes in. Turn the slices as they brown. When done,
take the pan over to the sink or table, remove the meat to a hot dish
and set where it will keep warm.
Strain the grease left in the pan through a bit of tarlatan or coarse
muslin into a cup. Wipe the frying-pan clean, pour in the strained fat
and return to the fire. If there is not enough to cover the bottom a
quarter of an inch deep, add a tablespoonful of butter. Break the eggs
one at a time in a cup, and when the fat hisses put them in carefully.
Few people like “turned” fried eggs. Slip a cake-turner or spatula
under each as it cooks to keep it from sticking. They should be done in
about three minutes. Do not put in more at once than can swim in the
fat without interfering with one another.
Take up as fast as they cook, trim off ragged and rusty edges and lay
on a hot platter. Drain each to get rid of the fat, as you take it out
of the pan.
When all are dished, lay the ham or bacon neatly about the eggs like
a garnish. Pepper all lightly. Ham for this purpose should be cut in
small narrow slices.
Drop sprays of parsley on the rim of the dish.
Baked Eggs.
Put a tablespoonful of butter in a pie-plate, and set in the oven until
it melts and begins to smoke. Take it to the table and break six eggs
one by one into a cup, pouring each in turn into the melted butter
carefully. Sprinkle with pepper and salt, put a tiny bit of butter
on each and set in the oven to bake until the eggs are “set”—that is,
when the whites are firm and the yolks skimmed over, but not hard. Four
minutes in a quick oven should do this. Send to table at once.
If you have a few spoonfuls of nice chicken gravy, you can strain and
use it instead of butter.
Scalloped Eggs.
Six eggs.
Half a cupful of nice gravy skimmed and strained.
Chicken, turkey, game and veal gravy are especially
good for this purpose. Clear soup may also be used.
Half a cupful of pounded cracker or fine dry
bread-crumbs.
Pepper and salt.
Pour the gravy into a pie-plate and let it get warm before putting in
the eggs as in last receipt. Pepper, salt and strew cracker crumbs
evenly over them. Bake five minutes. Serve in the pie-plate.
Dropped Eggs with White Sauce.
Drop or poach the eggs; put them on a hot, flat dish and pour over them
this sauce boiling hot.
In a saucepan put half a cupful of boiling water.
Two or three large spoonfuls of nice strained gravy.
A little pepper.
A quarter teaspoonful of salt.
When this boils stir in a heaping teaspoonful of flour wet up smoothly
with a little cold water to keep it from lumping. Stir and boil one
minute and add a tablespoonful of butter. Stir steadily two minutes
longer, add, if you like, a little minced parsley, and pour the sauce
which should be like thick cream, over the dished eggs.
Omelette.
Six eggs.
Four teaspoonfuls of cream.
Half a teaspoonful salt.
A little pepper.
Two tablespoonfuls of butter.
Whip whites and yolks together for four minutes in a bowl with the
“Dover” egg beater. They should be thick and smooth before you beat in
cream, salt and pepper. Melt the butter in a clean frying-pan, set on
one side of the stove where it will keep warm but not scorch. Pour the
beaten mixture into it and remove to a place where the fire is hotter.
As it “sets,” slip a broad knife carefully around the edges and under
it, that the butter may find its way freely to all parts of the pan.
When the middle is just set, pass a cake-turner _carefully_ under one
half of the omelette and fold it over the other. Lay a hot platter
upside down above the doubled mass and holding frying-pan and dish
firmly, turn the latter quickly over, reversing the positions of the
two, and depositing the omelette in the dish.
Do not be mortified should you break your trial omelette. Join the bits
neatly; lay sprays of parsley over the cracks and try another soon. Be
sure it is loosened from the pan before you try to turn it out; hold
pan and dish fast in place; do not be nervous or flurried, and you will
soon catch the knack of dishing the omelette dexterously and handsomely.
I have given you ten receipts for cooking eggs. It would be easy to
furnish as many more without exhausting the list of ways of preparing
this invaluable article of food for our tables. I have selected the
methods that are at once easy and excellent, and adapted to the ability
of a class of beginners.
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