Creole Eggs
3 tablespoonfuls Crisco 2 tablespoonfuls flour 8 hard-cooked eggs 2 cupfuls tomato pulp Salt, pepper, and paprika to taste 1 small chopped onion 1 bay leaf 1 blade mace 2 cloves 2 tablespoonfuls chopped parsley Pinch of powdered thyme Slices of cooked ham Breadcrumbs Fry onion, pepper, and parsley in Crisco till tender; add cloves, thyme, bay leaf, and mace, cook three minutes, then stir in flour, and tomato pulp. Let mixture boil stirring all the time then strain. Quarter the hard-cooked eggs. Put layer of tomato sauce in Criscoed baking dish, then layer of ham, then eggs sprinkled with salt, pepper, and paprika, then sauce, ham, and eggs, last layer being sauce. Cover with breadcrumbs, dot with Crisco and bake ten minutes in moderate oven.
A layered baked dish of hard-cooked eggs, ham and a spiced tomato sauce. Everything in it is already cooked, so the oven stage is only about heating through and browning the crumbs.
- CriscoThis book was written to promote Crisco, so shortening appears wherever an earlier cook would have used butter or lard. Butter is the better choice here for both the roux and the crumb topping; use about 3 tablespoons, plus more for greasing the dish.
- The two peppersThe ingredient list gives "salt, pepper, and paprika to taste," but the method says to fry the pepper with the onion. That most likely means a chopped green bell pepper, though the book never lists one; about one small one. Ground pepper goes on the egg layers with the salt and paprika.
- Blade of maceA blade is one whole piece of the dried aril from a nutmeg, and it is strained out with the bay leaf and cloves. If you only have ground mace, use a scant pinch and add it with the thyme.
- Tomato pulpAt this period this meant fresh tomatoes peeled, seeded and pressed, or the canned equivalent. Two cupfuls of plain canned crushed tomatoes or passata works; avoid seasoned pasta sauce, which duplicates the onion and herbs.
- Strain, then judge the thicknessStraining removes the whole spices and the aromatics, and it also thins the sauce a little. It should coat a spoon; if it is loose, reduce it a minute or two before layering, or the crumb topping will sink and go soggy.
- Moderate ovenRoughly 350-375F. Ten minutes at that temperature will heat the dish but will not colour the crumbs much. Either brown them under the broiler for a minute at the end or bake nearer 400F for 15 minutes.
- The hamAny cooked ham, sliced thin and cut to fit the dish. Cured ham plus paprika plus tomato is already salty, so taste the sauce before adding salt to the egg layers.
- YieldEight eggs makes enough for four as a main course with bread, or six as part of a larger meal. A shallow dish of about 8 by 8 inches gives the two full sets of layers the method calls for.
A Calendar of Dinners was written by Marion Harris Neil and published by Procter & Gamble in the mid-1910s to advertise Crisco, the hydrogenated vegetable shortening the company had introduced in 1911; that is why a fat brand name stands in for butter in almost every line. "Creole" on American menus of the period was generally shorthand for a tomato sauce built on onion and green pepper with whole spices, and the label was applied loosely to eggs, chops, oysters and rice well beyond Louisiana. The dish itself belongs to a thrifty domestic tradition: hard-cooked eggs and sliced cooked ham, layered with sauce and crumbs and briefly baked.