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Genoese Whites of Eggs
Take four whites of eggs, hard boiled and chopped fine. Mix thoroughly with two tablespoons of boiled white rice, each grain dry and separate. Put into a saucepan with a bit of butter, and some finely chopped parsley, salt and pepper. Mix thoroughly, and when quite hot, serve on buttered toast.
A five-minute skillet dish built from two leftovers: hard-boiled egg whites and cold cooked rice. The whole thing hinges on gentle heat and dry rice.
- YieldAs written it fills two slices of toast, enough for one substantial breakfast or two light ones. It scales directly if you have more whites on hand.
- Where the whites come fromDishes like this were a way of using whites left over when the yolks had gone into custards, mayonnaise or sauces. If you are starting from whole eggs, hard-boil four, chill them, and reserve the yolks for something else — the recipe wants the whites cooked solid, not raw.
- Rice, dry and separateDay-old refrigerated long-grain rice works best; freshly boiled rice steams and turns the mixture pasty. Two tablespoons is a small amount by design — the rice is a stretcher, not the body of the dish.
- Keep the heat lowCooked egg white toughens and squeaks if it is fried. Warm the mixture over medium-low heat just until it steams through, two or three minutes, then take it off.
- "A bit of butter"Read this as about a tablespoon. Less and the rice sticks; much more and the chopped white slides off the toast.
- Season assertivelyEgg white on its own is close to flavourless. Salt it more than instinct suggests, use plenty of black pepper, and be generous with the parsley — a good handful, chopped fine, is not too much.
- The toastButter it and use something sturdy enough to hold a wet topping. Toasting it while the pan warms means both are hot at the same moment, which matters more here than in most dishes.
Cookbooks of this era treated leftover egg whites as a small standing problem: yolks went into custards, cakes and salad dressings, and the whites accumulated in a bowl in the larder. Recipes were devoted to using them up, and the results tend to be frugal, quickly made supper dishes rather than showpieces. The "Genoese" label is often said to have attached to nineteenth- and early twentieth-century dishes that involved rice, parsley and butter, though it may be no more than an English shorthand for a vaguely Ligurian style rather than a documented Genoese original. Meatless cookery of this kind served households observing Lent or Friday abstinence. A dish of egg white and rice on toast answered that need, and cost almost nothing.