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Eggs, Baked
Cut six hard-boiled eggs into halves, and take a small slice from underneath, so that they can stand upright. Take out the yolks and mash them with two ounces of cooked veal, three anchovies, a little parsley, and two mushrooms, all finely minced, and pepper and salt to taste. Fill in the cavities with the mixture; brush over with egg, and bake in a moderate oven for twenty minutes. Probable cost, 1s.
A Victorian way of turning leftover roast veal into a hot savoury. The method is sound; the timing and the seasoning are where a modern cook should intervene.
- Twenty minutes is too longTwenty minutes is likely longer than needed -- the veal is already cooked and the eggs only have to heat through and colour on top. (The minced mushroom, though, goes in raw, so either allow for it or cook it first, as below.) Ten to twelve minutes should be enough; beyond that the whites turn rubbery.
- A moderate oven350F (175C). Set the halves in a shallow dish or on a lined tray so they cannot tip.
- SaltThree anchovy fillets carry a good deal of salt into two ounces of meat and six yolks. Mix, taste, and only then decide whether any further salt is wanted. Anchovies packed in oil are milder than the salted or brined fillets a kitchen of the period would more likely have had; if using salt-packed, rinse them first.
- The mushroomsMinced raw mushroom releases water into the filling as it bakes and can make it loose. Sweat the two mushrooms in a little butter until dry, then chop and fold in.
- Cooked vealTwo ounces of any cold roast will do the same work olecooked chicken, turkey or pork. The point is a mild, firm meat that carries the anchovy rather than competing with it.
- Brush over with eggA beaten whole egg or just the yolk, thinned with a teaspoon of water. It sets to a glaze; a scattering of fine breadcrumbs over the wash gives a better surface if you want colour.
- Trimming the baseTake only a sliver from the rounded end. Cut too deep and the filling leaks out underneath during baking.
- YieldTwelve halves oleight as a light first course for four, or a supper dish for two with salad. The "probable cost, 1s" is the shilling price of the period, not a guide to anything now.
This belongs to a whole family of Victorian and Edwardian savouries and luncheon dishes built on hard-boiled eggs stuffed with a pounded forcemeat ole French oeufs farcis, taken up by English cooks during the nineteenth century. The anchovy is the tell: British cooks of the period reached for anchovy, essence of anchovy or anchovy paste wherever a dish needed savour, in much the way a modern kitchen reaches for soy or Worcestershire sauce. Veal appears because Cassell's was written for households that roasted large joints and expected the remains to reappear, minced and dressed, at the next day's table, and almost every entry in the book closes with a "probable cost" line. Eggs, unsurprisingly, run through many of the dictionary's pages.