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Poached Egg in Tomato
Cut a piece from the stem end of a tomato; remove pulp; set in ramekin dish; sprinkle with salt and pepper, being careful not to break the yolk; cover with buttered paper. Set in a pan of water and bake in a moderate oven until firm.
Scrambled Eggs No. I 4 eggs 4 tablespoons milk or cream 1 teaspoon salt teaspoon pepper 1 teaspoon chopped parsley 2 tablespoons butter Beat egg slightly, enough to blend yolks and whites; add seasonings, parsley and milk. Melt butter in frying pan, add egg mixture, and cook slowly, lifting carefully with a spoon to keep mixture uniformly delicate.
Scrambled Eggs No. 2 Prepare the same as Scrambled Eggs No. 1, beating yolks and whites separately. Many persons have better success scrambling eggs in a double boiler instead of in a frying pan.
Scrambled eggs can be varied in appearance and flavor by adding various chopped meats, condiments, vegetables, cheese, or mushrooms.
Two separate recipes have run together here, and the typesetting has lost some fractions along the way. The tomato dish is sound once you supply the step the printer dropped.
- The missing eggThe instructions never say to add the egg, but the title and the warning about the yolk make it clear: after hollowing the tomato and setting it in the ramekin, break a whole egg into the cavity, then season. Slide the egg in from a saucer rather than cracking it directly over the tomato.
- Drain the tomato firstScoop out the pulp and seeds, salt the inside lightly, and let it sit upside down for ten minutes. Tomato liquid released during baking will thin the egg white and leave a watery ramekin.
- Moderate ovenAbout 350F; period "moderate" covered roughly 350 to 375F. The pan of water is a bain-marie: hot water to about halfway up the ramekins, which keeps the whites from turning rubbery before the yolk sets.
- Buttered paperA buttered round of parchment laid directly on top. It stops a skin forming and keeps condensation off the egg. Foil works but should not touch the surface.
- TimingThe book says only "until firm." Expect 20 to 25 minutes for a set white with a soft yolk, longer if the tomato is large or the water was not already hot. The white should no longer be translucent at the edge of the yolk.
- Choose a firm tomatoA ripe but dense tomato holds its walls; a soft one collapses in the water bath. Standard round tomatoes of about 3 inches suit a ramekin; beefsteaks will need a wider dish and more time.
- YieldOne tomato and one egg per person as a light lunch or supper dish, two as a first course.
- The scrambled egg seasoning"1 teaspoon salt" for four eggs is heavy-handed and may well be a lost fraction; the pepper quantity has clearly lost its fraction in the typesetting. Use about 1/4 teaspoon salt and a pinch of pepper for four eggs and adjust at the table.
- Double boiler scramblingThe book's aside is worth following. Over simmering water the curd forms slowly and stays creamy; in a frying pan the eggs pass from soft to dry in seconds. Pull them from the heat while still slightly looser than you want.
This is a Progressive Era ramekin recipe: individual portions, gentle water-bath cooking, and a vegetable used as an edible container. Lowney's Cook Book was published by the Walter M. Lowney Company, the Boston chocolate firm, as a promotional volume, and it carried a full general cookery course alongside the chocolate chapters. Eggs baked in a hollowed tomato belong to the same family as eggs en cocotte and eggs in a pepper cup. The insistence on a pan of water and a buttered paper reflects the period's real concern with the texture of a cooked egg -- Fannie Farmer and her contemporaries argued at length that eggs should never be cooked at a hard boil.