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Savory Stuffed Eggs in Mayonnaise
Cut twelve hard-boiled eggs into halves lengthwise. Take out the yolks, put them through a potato ricer and mix them with two tablespoons each of melted butter, anchovy paste and chopped ham. Add half a teaspoon of paprika.
Press this egg paste into each white and lay them together. When ready to serve pour over the dish a tumbler of mayonnaise.
A cold buffet dish of the sort that once opened a luncheon: whole eggs reassembled around a savory paste and masked with mayonnaise at the table. Only a few of its terms need translating.
- A tumbler of mayonnaiseA tumbler is a drinking glass of roughly 8 fl oz, so about one cup. That is enough to coat twelve eggs in a shallow dish rather than to dress them individually.
- The mayonnaise itselfThe original assumes a kitchen-made mayonnaise built on raw yolks and served the same day. Use a commercial jarred mayonnaise, which is made with acidified or pasteurized egg, particularly as the finished dish sits at room temperature while it is served.
- Potato ricerAny fine sieve pressed with the back of a spoon does the same work. The point is a lump-free yolk paste; a fork leaves grains that will not bind smoothly with the butter.
- Anchovy pasteStill sold in tubes, and two tablespoons is assertive. It is salty enough that no additional salt is likely needed; the recipe names none.
- Chopped hamCooked, cured ham, chopped very fine or minced; coarse dice will keep the halves from closing.
- Laying them togetherThe halves are pressed back into whole egg shapes, not left open like deviled eggs. Overfill each white slightly so the two faces meet with the filling proud between them, then chill until firm so they hold when sauced.
- Timing and yieldTwelve eggs give twelve reassembled eggs, enough for eight to twelve as a first course. Stuff and chill up to a day ahead, but add the mayonnaise only at the moment of serving, as the recipe specifies, or the coating slides and weeps.
Stuffed eggs are far older than this book "deced" and "farced" eggs appear in English and continental cookery well before 1900 and the anchovy paste fits a wider taste for savory fish flavorings, the same impulse behind anchovy toast, anchovy butter and Worcestershire sauce. Serving the eggs whole under a blanket of mayonnaise reflects a fondness for masked cold dishes, where a sauce poured over at the table was itself part of the presentation.