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Potato Nest
Mash half a pound of cold boiled potatoes, and line a well-buttered pie-dish with them. Cut three or four slices of ham into pieces about two inches square; put these into the pie-dish on top of the potatoes, and sprinkle with a little cayenne. Bake for about fifteen minutes; then take from the oven and break four eggs into the mould, being careful to preserve the yolks whole. Then return to the oven and bake until the eggs are well cooked.
A simple supper dish of mashed potato, ham and baked eggs. The only real difficulty is judging when the eggs are done, since the original gives no temperature and no final time.
- Oven temperatureThe original gives no oven temperature at all; 350F/180C is a reasonable modern choice. The first fifteen minutes serve to heat the potato crust and start the ham before the eggs go in.
- Quantities and yieldHalf a pound of cold potato is roughly two medium boiled potatoes, or about a cup of mash. With four eggs this serves two as a light main course, and it wants a shallow dish so the potato lines it thinly rather than sitting in a mass.
- The hinge: how long the eggs bake"Bake until the eggs are well cooked" means whites fully set and yolks firm, which at 350F takes 12 to 15 minutes. If you want the yolks soft, pull the dish at 8 to 10 minutes, when the whites are opaque but still trembling; carryover heat from the hot potato will keep them cooking on the counter.
- Making hollows for the eggsThe recipe calls the dish a "nest" and a "mould" but never says to make depressions. Press four shallow wells into the potato with the back of a spoon before the first bake, otherwise the eggs slide together and spread into a single sheet.
- The hamPeriod ham was cured and salty, generally cut thick from a joint. Modern thin sandwich ham dries out and curls; use thick-cut cooked ham or gammon, about 4 to 5 oz, in the two-inch squares specified.
- SeasoningOnly cayenne is mentioned, and the ham would have brought its own salt. Taste the mashed potato and salt it as needed, and grate over a little cheese in the last five minutes if you want the top to brown.
- Butter the dish properly"Well-buttered" is not incidental. Cold mashed potato sticks hard to earthenware, and there is no liquid in the dish to loosen it.
Dishes of this kind belong to the late Victorian and Edwardian economy of leftovers, where cold boiled potatoes from yesterday's dinner became today's breakfast or supper. Cassell's New Dictionary of Cookery was a household reference of some thousands of entries. Shaped borders of potato, rice or forcemeat holding eggs, fish or minced meat run parallel to the French kitchen's use of a bordure of duchesse potato, though the line of descent is not clear. Baking eggs in a dish rather than frying them was, it seems, often thought lighter and more suitable for invalids and children.