Stuffed Eggs
6 hard boiled eggs 1 tablespoon melted butter 1/2 teaspoon salt 3 tablespoons minced ham 1/8 teaspoon pepper 1/4 teaspoon mustard 1 tablespoon vinegar Cut the eggs into halves, crosswise or lengthwise. Rub the yolks to a paste with the minced meat and seasonings; moisten with melted butter and vinegar, form into balls the size of the yolk removed, and pack into the space from which they were taken. Put over the other half and press together; roll each in a piece of paper napkin, twist the napkin at each end. A tablespoon of highly seasoned salad dressing may be substituted for the butter. These make a nice picnic dish.
A deviled egg in its earlier form — reassembled whole rather than served open-faced, and wrapped for transport. Nothing here needs updating except a few assumptions the book leaves unstated.
- The hinge: a dry, firm pasteThe filling has to be stiff enough to hold a ball and stay put when the halves are pressed back together. Add the butter and vinegar a little at a time; a loose, mayonnaise-slack filling will squeeze out at the seam and the eggs will not stand up to a basket.
- Mustard means dry mustardIn a book of this period, an eighth or quarter teaspoon of "mustard" is almost certainly mustard powder, not prepared mustard from a jar. If you substitute prepared mustard, use about three times as much and cut the vinegar back, since the jarred kind is already acidic.
- Minced hamAny cooked ham, chopped very fine; ham trimmings would have served. Deli ham works; a dry-cured country ham is saltier, so taste before adding the half teaspoon of salt.
- Hard-boiled eggsFor yolks that mash to a smooth paste without a green ring, cover the eggs with water, bring to a boil, remove from the heat, and let stand covered about 10 minutes before cooling in cold water. Eggs a week or so old peel far more cleanly than very fresh ones.
- Cutting crosswiseThe recipe allows either cut, and both get wrapped. Crosswise halves reassemble into a whole egg; lengthwise halves are easier to fill. Either way the reassembled egg will roll, so trim a thin sliver off one side if you want it to sit still.
- The paper napkinThis is the period's version of a wrapper — a twisted paper sleeve holds the two halves together and gives something to grip. A square of parchment or waxed paper does the same job and will not soften from the butter.
- Yield and keepingTwelve halves, or six reassembled eggs — a first course or picnic item for three or four. Filled eggs are best made the day they are eaten and kept properly cold; for a picnic, pack them on ice rather than trusting the basket.
Stuffed eggs of this kind are older than the name "deviled eggs," which attached itself to spiced, mustard-laced dishes in English cookery from the late eighteenth century onward — "devil" being a common term for anything sharpened with mustard, pepper or vinegar. What dates this particular version is the presentation: the egg is put back together and wrapped in a twist of paper napkin, a piece of picnic technique from a time when cold food travelled in hampers and needed to be handled without a plate. Its appearance in a flour company's cookbook reflects how such books worked — milling companies issued recipe collections to sell flour, but padded them into general household manuals covering eggs, salads and meats so they would stay on the kitchen shelf. The suggestion of "highly seasoned salad dressing" in place of butter points to the boiled and cooked dressings then common in American kitchens, which commercial mayonnaise would later displace.