Home › The Principles of Cookery › Eggs, Savoury
Eggs, Savoury
Put two ounces of butter into a stewpan, first rubbing the bottom of it with a clove of garlic. When the butter has become very hot, stir in five eggs previously well beaten, and seasoned with salt, pepper, and a grain of cayenne; continue to stir quickly till done, and send to table on a hot dish. Time, about four minutes. Probable cost, 8d. Sufficient for two persons.
This is scrambled eggs in the French manner, rich with butter and scented rather than flavoured with garlic. The whole thing turns on heat control.
- The hinge: lower the heatThe instruction to get the butter "very hot" suits a solid-fuel range, where the cook could shift the pan to a cooler part of the top as soon as the eggs went in. On a modern burner, use medium-low and pull the pan away periodically; four minutes of constant stirring over gentle heat gives a soft curd, while a truly hot pan will set the eggs into rubbery lumps in well under the stated time.
- The garlic rubRubbing a cut clove around the pan leaves only a trace of aroma. It is deliberate understatement, not a shortcut for chopped garlic. If you want the flavour to register more clearly, halve the clove and rub the serving dish as well.
- Butter quantityTwo ounces is 4 tablespoons for five eggs, which is generous by current habit but is what makes the texture. Salted butter will make the added salt unnecessary; taste before seasoning.
- "A grain of cayenne"A grain was a genuine unit of weight (about 65 mg), but in cookery it was used loosely to mean the smallest possible trace: in practice a pinch, perhaps 1/16 teaspoon. Cayenne here is for warmth at the back of the palate, not heat.
- StewpanA straight-sided pan with a flat base, of the saucepan type rather than a shallow frying pan. A modern nonstick or well-seasoned skillet does the same job and makes the stirring easier.
- DonenessTake the pan off the heat while the eggs still look slightly underdone and glossy; residual heat in the pan and the hot serving dish will finish them. "Send to table on a hot dish" is part of the method, not just service.
- Cost and yieldEightpence in late-Victorian money; the yield of two persons still holds for five eggs as a light supper or breakfast.
Scrambled eggs made with a large proportion of butter and stirred continuously over gentle heat were associated with French kitchen practice, and were often contrasted with a drier, firmer English scramble. Rubbing a cut clove of garlic round the pan was a familiar British device for lending its perfume without admitting it as an ingredient; the same trick was applied to salad bowls and to toast.