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EGGS (a la Suisse)
Have ready six or more patty-tins, well buttered; cover the bottom of each with a slice of Gruyere cheese; break an egg into each without disturbing the yolk; season with a little grated nutmeg, salt and pepper; pour a little cream on the surface. Strew the tops of them with grated cheese, then place the tins on a baking sheet and set them in the oven to bake for about ten minutes. Have ready an equal number of slices of hot buttered toast, turn out one tin on each, and serve at once. Probable cost, 1s. 6d.
A straightforward baked egg, and everything depends on pulling the tins out before the yolks set. The only real translation needed is the equipment and the oven.
- Patty-tinsSmall round tins for individual pastries, roughly the size of a modern muffin cup or a 4 oz ramekin. A standard 6-cup muffin tin works, though ramekins are easier to unmould without breaking the yolk.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given. Baked eggs of this kind want a moderate oven, 350-375F; hotter and the whites toughen at the edges before the centre sets.
- Ten minutes is the hingeAt 350F, ten minutes gives set whites and a soft yolk. Twelve or more and the yolk goes chalky, which defeats the point of turning it out onto toast. Check at eight minutes and judge by the wobble of the white.
- GruyereReal Gruyere, sliced thin — about 1/8 in. A thick slab will not melt through in ten minutes and the egg slides off it when turned out. Emmental or Comte behave the same way.
- "A little cream"Roughly a tablespoon per egg. More than that and the cream pools and refuses to set, so the whole thing floods the toast.
- Butter the tins properlyThe eggs are inverted onto toast, so the tins must be greased thoroughly, right up the sides. A thin film is not enough where cheese has melted against the metal.
- NutmegGrated nutmeg with eggs and cheese is standard period seasoning and it is not incidental here — a light grating, less than a pinch, or it dominates.
- Yield and costThe recipe says six or more patty-tins; at six eggs and six rounds of toast that is six servings as a light supper or breakfast dish, or three as a main plate. The "1s. 6d." is the book's own estimate of the outlay for the whole dish and has no modern equivalent worth calculating.
Cassell's appears to use "a la Suisse" as shorthand for Gruyere, the hard alpine cheese that had become widely available in British shops by the late nineteenth century, a label the dictionary seems to attach to several dishes — eggs, soup, macaroni. Baked eggs in individual vessels belong to a wider Victorian enthusiasm for single-portion service: the same book carries dishes cooked in patty-tins, dariole moulds and scallop shells, partly for elegance at table and perhaps also because the small vessels cooked quickly in the erratic heat of a coal range. Turning the egg out onto toast rather than serving it in the tin is often said to be the older English habit, from a time when a savoury dish reaching the table on a hot buttered round was a familiar way of eating eggs at breakfast or as a late-evening savoury.