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Eggs, Buttered, and Shrimps
Melt two ounces of butter in a small enamelled saucepan, add six beaten eggs, a table-spoonful of milk, and a quarter of a pint of picked shrimps; season with pepper and salt to taste. Stir until the mixture thickens, then spread it on hot buttered toast. Garnish with parsley and little heaps of shrimps round the dish. Probable cost, 1s. 3d.
A Victorian scrambled egg, richer than most modern versions and built around the small brown shrimps sold ready-boiled and picked. The whole dish takes about five minutes once the shrimps are ready.
- "Buttered eggs" means scrambledThe Victorian term covers eggs stirred in butter over heat until creamy. Two ounces of butter to six eggs is roughly four tablespoons, which is generous by modern habit but gives the loose, sauce-like texture intended.
- Low heat, and off earlyThis is the hinge of the dish. Cook over a low flame, stirring constantly, and pull the pan off the heat while the eggs still look slightly underdone; residual heat will finish them. Taken to "thickened" on a hot burner they turn granular and weep on the toast.
- A quarter of a pint of shrimpsShellfish were commonly sold by volume, so this is a quarter of an imperial pint, about 5 fl oz or two-thirds of a US cup of picked shrimp meat, roughly 3 to 4 oz. Buy small cooked cold-water shrimp; the tiny brown shrimp of the English coast are the traditional choice and are still sold potted or peeled by some fishmongers.
- Add the shrimps warm, not cookedThey are already cooked. Folded in with the raw eggs they will heat through in the time the eggs take to set. Any longer over direct heat and they tighten and go rubbery.
- The enamelled saucepanThe recipe does not say why, but bare iron can give eggs a metallic taint and a grey cast, and unlined copper was distrusted for delicate foods. Any nonstick or well-seasoned pan does the same job now.
- Salt with careCooked shrimp are usually sold already salted or brined, so season the eggs lightly and taste before adding more.
- YieldSix eggs on toast serves three as a light supper or breakfast, or four as a savoury course. The garnish of shrimp heaps around the dish is worth keeping; it is the only visual cue that the eggs contain shellfish.
- The price1s 3d is fifteen pence in pre-decimal money, quoted as the probable cost of the whole dish. Shrimps were widely and cheaply sold in Victorian coastal and London markets, though six eggs and two ounces of butter would still have made this a moderate rather than a trivial outlay.
The entry sits under Eggs in Cassell's alphabetical arrangement rather than among its fish entries, and the pairing of shrimps with buttered eggs on toast belongs to the late Victorian and Edwardian "savoury" tradition: small hot dishes served at breakfast, high tea, or at the end of dinner after the sweet. Potted shrimps and picked shrimps were sold in quantity in Britain through the nineteenth century, the tiny brown shrimp being netted in shallow bays and boiled on the boat or the shore, then hand-picked, which is why the recipe assumes the reader buys them ready to use. The instruction to use an enamelled pan reflects a genuine kitchen concern of the period, when enamelled ironware was still a relatively recent convenience and the alternatives discoloured delicate foods. Dishes of this shape survive in British cooking as shrimp-and-egg breakfasts and in the enduring popularity of potted shrimps on toast.