Emma Carus
EGGS CHIPILATA
Circular slices of buttered toast Artichoke bases Eggs Boil artichokes in salted water until done, about 40 minutes.
Take from water when done and remove all leaves and center, leaving base. Place the base still hot upon the hot, freshly made toast. Poach the eggs and serve one egg on top of each artichoke base.
I am fond of hot waffles with the Eggs Chipilata and sometimes pour a spoonful of Madeira sauce over each egg. One is a portion and it is a wonderful breakfast dish.
A breakfast assembly rather than a cooked dish: toast, a hot artichoke bottom, a poached egg. Almost everything depends on the artichoke being properly trimmed and still hot when it meets the toast.
- The stray heading"CANNELON OF BEEF" appears to belong to a neighbouring recipe and has been caught up with this page. It has nothing to do with this dish; the recipe proper begins at "EGGS CHIPILATA".
- Artichoke basesThese are the fonds — the fleshy disc left when the leaves and the hairy choke are stripped away from a large globe artichoke. Buy the biggest globes you can find, since a small one yields a base too narrow to hold an egg. Jarred or frozen artichoke bottoms work and need only reheating in salted water.
- Cooking timeForty minutes is right for very large globes; medium ones are done in 25 to 30. Test by pulling an outer leaf, which should come away easily. Add lemon juice or a splash of vinegar to the water to keep the cut surfaces from browning.
- Remove the choke completelyThe recipe says "remove all leaves and center" and means it. Any of the fine hairy fibres left behind on the base are unpleasant to eat; scrape the disc clean with a spoon while it is hot.
- PoachingBarely simmering water with a spoonful of vinegar, three minutes for a soft yolk. Lift each egg onto a folded towel for a moment before it goes on the artichoke, or the toast beneath will go to pieces.
- Madeira sauceIn this period that means a brown sauce — demi-glace or a reduced beef stock thickened lightly — finished with Madeira off the heat so the wine keeps its aroma. A bottled demi-glace with a tablespoon of dry Madeira stirred in is a fair substitute.
- Yield and timingOne base and one egg per person, as stated. Everything must be hot at once, so poach the eggs while the artichokes finish and make the toast last.
Emma Carus was a contralto of the vaudeville and musical-comedy stage, remembered for a booming voice and for introducing "Alexander's Ragtime Band" in 1911; collections like this one traded on the appeal of stars supplying their favourite dishes rather than on any culinary authority. The name is a loose borrowing: in classical French cookery à la chipolata denotes a garnish of small sausages, chestnuts, glazed onions and lardons, and the term is generally traced to the Italian cipollata, a dish of onions. Nothing of that garnish survives here — what remains is the fashionable French label attached to a hotel-style egg dish, which is very much how restaurant menus of the 1900s and 1910s worked. Artichoke bottoms under a poached egg were a standard luxury breakfast or supper item of the era.