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Poached Eggs à la Creole
Stew together I can of tomatoes (or 1 quart freshly cut), I green pepper seeded and cut fine and ¼ of a teaspoonful of salt. When the tomato is reduced one-half rub all through a sieve. Have ready for each person I round or slice of toast and I neatly poached egg. Melt and brown 2 tablespoonfuls of butter in a frying-pan, add 1 tablespoonful of vinegar and boil for half a minute. Pour the tomato on a platter, lay on it the toast, arrange on each piece I of the poached eggs and over all pour the butter mixture, sending immediately to the table.
A quick tomato coulis under poached eggs on toast, finished with browned butter sharpened by vinegar. The whole thing depends on timing: the sauce and toast should be waiting before the eggs go into the water.
- QuantitiesThe recipe equates one can of tomatoes with one quart of freshly cut tomatoes, so aim for about a quart, juice included; the largest modern cans (around 28 oz) come closest. The salt is a quarter teaspoon, which is a starting point only; taste after the sauce has reduced and concentrated.
- Reducing by halfOn a medium burner in a wide pan this will take roughly half an hour, though it varies with pan width and how watery the tomatoes are. Stir toward the end, since a reduced tomato purée scorches quickly.
- SievingRubbing through a sieve removes skins, seeds and pepper fibre and gives the smooth pool the dish is plated on. A food mill on the fine plate does the same job faster; a blender will not, as it purées the skins in rather than removing them.
- The green pepperAn ordinary green bell pepper. It is the tomato-and-green-pepper pairing that carries the "Creole" label here, so a sweet red pepper will give a noticeably different, sweeter sauce.
- Browned butter and vinegarThis is the hinge. Take the butter to a nutty brown, not black, then add the vinegar off the heat before returning it briefly to the burner — it will spit. The recipe's half-minute boil is enough to take the raw edge off the vinegar.
- PoachingThree minutes in barely simmering water gives a set white and a liquid yolk. A tablespoon of vinegar in the poaching water helps the whites hold together, and the freshest eggs poach most neatly.
- Yield and timingThe recipe gives no yield, only one round of toast and one poached egg per person; a quart of tomatoes reduced by half makes enough sauce for about four, and the butter mixture will need scaling up beyond that. Assemble at the last moment — the toast softens fast under hot tomato, which is why the original insists on sending it straight in.
"À la Creole" on an American menu of this period is shorthand for tomato with green pepper. Its appeal to a low-cost collection is obvious: canned tomatoes, one pepper, bread and an egg apiece feed a table for very little, and the browned-butter-and-vinegar finish supplies the richness and sharpness that would otherwise have to come from meat. The technique of pouring hot butter soured with vinegar over eggs is older than the Creole label and turns up in English and French cookery as a standard dressing for poached and hard-boiled eggs; here it does double duty, seasoning the eggs and cutting the sweetness of the reduced tomato.