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Woodcock, Mock
Beat two eggs, and mix with them a table-spoonful of cream. Fillet half a dozen anchovies, warm them before the fire, put them with the eggs into a small saucepan, and stir them briskly over the fire for a minute or two until the sauce thickens. Add a little minced cooked tongue or ham, spread the preparation on toast, and serve as hot as possible.
A savoury in the Victorian mould: soft anchovy-scrambled egg on toast, closely related to Scotch woodcock. The whole thing takes about five minutes, and the only difficulty is not overcooking the eggs.
- The hingeTake the pan off the heat while the mixture is still visibly loose. Two eggs with a tablespoon of cream set very quickly, and residual heat will finish them on the toast; carried to the point where it looks done in the pan, it turns granular and weeps.
- "Warm them before the fire"This means softening the filleted anchovies so they break down and dissolve into the egg. A minute in a warm pan, or mashed to a paste with the back of a knife, achieves the same thing.
- AnchoviesThe recipe means half a dozen whole anchovies, filleted, which yields twelve fillets; salt-packed or oil-packed fillets can be substituted. Drain them well and add no further salt; the tongue or ham brings more.
- Heat levelLow, and stir constantly. A small heavy saucepan is better than a thin one, and some cooks prefer a bowl over simmering water for complete control.
- CreamA tablespoon of double or heavy cream. Single or light cream will work but gives a slacker result.
- Tongue or hamCooked, cold and finely minced — a tablespoon or two. Pressed ox tongue is now a specialist purchase; good cooked ham or a little prosciutto stands in without changing the character.
- Toast and yieldEnough for two rounds of hot buttered toast, crusts off, cut into fingers. As a savoury or a light snack it serves two; the mixture will not hold and must go straight from pan to toast to table.
Naming a dish "mock" something was standard nineteenth-century shorthand for a preparation that stood in for game or luxury — mock turtle, mock crab, mock venison — and here the reference is to woodcock, a small wading bird traditionally roasted with its trail spread on toast. The savoury course, a small hot salty mouthful served after the sweet in British dining, gave rise to a whole family of these toast dishes; the best-known relative is Scotch woodcock, generally described as anchovy on toast under soft egg or egg sauce, and the version here simply folds the anchovy into the egg itself. The dish demands nothing but store-cupboard anchovies, a couple of eggs and scraps of cold tongue or ham.