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Ham and Egg Tartlets
Chop up finely 6 tablespoonfuls of cooked ham, put it in a basin, add 2 heaping tablespoonfuls of bread crumbs, 1/4 teaspoonful of white pepper, a grating of nutmeg, and ¼ cupful of milk. Mix to a paste of moderate consistency. Butter some plain gem pans, sprinkle them with browned bread crumbs, and line each thickly with the prepared paste. Break carefully 1 egg into each of the molds, put I or 2 small pieces of butter on the top of each egg, sprinkle over a little paprika and bake in the oven for ten minutes. Unmold carefully, and serve hot.
A savoury egg baked in a ham crust, cooked in muffin tins. The whole thing hinges on not overbaking the yolks.
- Fractions in the ingredient listThe pepper and milk quantities are printed as "14 teaspoonful" and "14 cupful"; these are a quarter teaspoon of white pepper and a quarter cup of milk. Likewise "I egg" is one egg per mould.
- Gem pansPlain gem pans are the cast-iron or tinned muffin pans of the period, "plain" distinguishing them from fancy shaped ones. A standard muffin tin works; the quantities given here are small and will line only a few cups.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given. A moderate oven, around 375F, suits the dish; much hotter risks the ham lining colouring before the white sets.
- Ten minutes is the outside limitTen minutes in a moderate oven should give a set white and a soft yolk. Pull them when the whites are just opaque; the hot ham shell goes on cooking them after they leave the oven, and longer baking will firm the yolk.
- The paste consistency"Moderate consistency" means it should hold a shape when pressed against the side of the tin without slumping. If the ham is lean and dry, add milk a spoonful at a time; if it is wet, add crumbs.
- Browned bread crumbsThese are dry crumbs toasted in a pan or oven until tan, used here as a release layer. Fine dried crumbs or panko ground down will do the same job. Butter the tins generously first or the shells will not unmould.
- Two kinds of crumbThe recipe specifies browned crumbs only for the tin lining; the crumbs in the paste are left unqualified, which suggests ordinary soft crumbs for binding.
- Yield and servingThe recipe gives no yield; the quantities will fill only a few moulds. Unmould with a thin knife round each shell and serve at once, since the yolks firm up as they stand.
Recipes like this belong to the thrift tradition of turning a few tablespoonfuls of leftover ham into a dish that reads as substantial: the meat becomes the pastry, so no flour, fat or rolling is needed. Baking eggs in individual moulds was well established by the late nineteenth century, and cookbooks of the period give variations lining them with fish, mince or vegetable purees before dropping in an egg. The paprika may be a period marker too: paprika appears with increasing frequency in English-language cookbooks around the turn of the twentieth century.