Shirred Eggs
Sprinkle fine bread crumbs over the bottom of individual dishes that have been well buttered. Carefully break a fresh egg into each, dust with salt and pepper, and cover the tops with bread crumbs. Stand the dishes in a pan of hot water, put them in a hot oven, and cook until the eggs are set. Put bits of butter on the top of each, and serve at once.
A straightforward baked egg, cooked gently in a water bath so the white sets without toughening. The only real variables are the dish, the oven heat, and knowing when to pull them.
- The dishes"Individual dishes" means shallow ramekins, small gratin dishes or the low-sided eared china made specifically for shirred eggs. Anything 4 to 5 inches across and about an inch deep works; a deep, narrow ramekin sets the white unevenly around a still-raw yolk.
- Oven heatA "hot oven" in books of this period is usually glossed as somewhere in the 400-450F range. With the water bath moderating the heat, 400F is a practical setting.
- The water bathUse water that is already hot from the kettle and bring it to about halfway up the sides of the dishes. A folded towel or a rack in the bottom of the pan keeps the china off direct metal heat and stops the bottoms from overcooking.
- Timing and donenessFigure 10 to 14 minutes. Pull them when the white is just opaque and the yolk still trembles; carryover heat in a hot ceramic dish will keep cooking the egg for a minute or two after it leaves the oven. Cooked until visibly firm in the dish, the yolk will be chalky at the table.
- CrumbsDry fine crumbs from stale bread, not the coarse commercial kind, and not panko. The bottom layer keeps the white from bonding to the dish; the top layer wants a little butter worked in if you want it to color at all in so short a bake.
- The final butterThe bits of butter go on after baking, on the hot crumbs, so they melt rather than fry. This is what carries the seasoning; be less sparing than the wording suggests.
- YieldOne or two dishes per person. Two eggs with toast makes a breakfast; one dish suits a first course.
"Shirred" appears in American cookbooks in the nineteenth century, often as the English equivalent given for the French oeufs sur le plat — eggs baked and served in the same small dish — though the two are not always the same method. The name is usually associated with the shirr, the shallow eared china dish, but both the origin of the word and the direction of the borrowing between dish and technique are unsettled. The technique belongs to a period when a household cook needed a hot dish that could go from oven to table without transfer or garnish.