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Shrimp Eggs
18 large picked shrimps 3 heaping tablespoonfuls finely chopped cooked tongue 1 tablespoonful cream 2 tablespoonfuls sherry wine 1 pint (2 cups) good thick gravy A few drops red coloring Some parsley Salt and pepper Butter some small casseroles and break into each an egg; put into the oven and let cook, but they must not harden. Put the gravy into a saucepan, add the sherry wine, the tongue, and the shrimps. simmer for ten minutes, but do not allow it to boil.
Season nicely, add the cream and red coloring; pour over the eggs, place a sprig of parsley in the center of each, and serve at once.
An early-20th-century breakfast or supper dish of shirred eggs under a sherried shrimp sauce. The whole thing hinges on the eggs staying soft, so build the sauce first and have it hot before the eggs go in.
- "Small casseroles"These are individual earthenware or porcelain cocottes, roughly 4 to 6 ounces each — modern ramekins do the job. Butter them generously; the eggs will stick otherwise.
- Oven heatThe original gives none. Shirred eggs want a moderate oven, 325–350F, for about 10 to 14 minutes: whites just set, yolks still liquid. Setting the ramekins in a pan of hot water buys you a wider margin.
- "Picked shrimps"Cooked, peeled and deveined shrimp. Eighteen large ones is about 8 ounces. They are already cooked, so they only need warming through in the sauce — cut them into halves or thirds if you want them to spoon out evenly.
- Do not let the sauce boilStated in the original and worth repeating: hard boiling drives off the sherry and toughens the shrimp. Hold it at a bare tremble. Note that the cream goes in at the end, after the simmering.
- Cooked tongueBeef tongue, simmered and peeled, a familiar cold-larder item in this period. Pickled or smoked tongue from a deli counter will serve; finely diced cooked ham is a workable substitute, though saltier.
- "Good thick gravy"Two cups of a well-reduced brown gravy or a thick velouté made with veal or chicken stock. It should coat a spoon heavily, since the cream and sherry will thin it.
- Red coloringCochineal or a commercial vegetable coloring, used purely to give the sauce a pink cast. Tomato paste or a little sweet paprika does the same job with something to contribute.
- YieldThe original gives no count; 18 shrimps and a pint of gravy suggest about six ramekins, one each as a first course or light supper. Serve the moment the sauce goes on — the residual heat keeps cooking the yolk.
Casserole cookery had a genuine vogue in the years before the Second World War. This recipe belongs to that moment and also to the older chafing-dish tradition of dressing eggs in a rich, spirit-laced sauce for breakfast, luncheon or after the theatre. The pairing of shrimp with chopped tongue looks odd now, but cold cooked tongue was an ordinary standby in a household that boiled its own meats, and cooks were expected to find uses for it beyond the sandwich plate. The few drops of red coloring are the period's habit of finishing a dish for the eye: a pink sauce over a pale egg read as elegant.