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Baked Eggs à La Martin
2 tablespoons butter 2 tablespoons flour 1 pint milk Red pepper 1 level teaspoon salt 6 eggs 1/2 cup grated cheese Make cream sauce as for baked omelet; pour half of it into a baking dish; break over it six eggs, and cover them with the remaining half of the sauce. Sprinkle red pepper and the grated cheese over the top and bake in a moderate oven for ten or fifteen minutes.
A baked version of shirred eggs, set between two layers of thin bechamel. The whole thing hinges on pulling it out while the yolks are still soft.
- Moderate ovenThe book gives no figure; the term is usually taken to mean somewhere around 350-375F. At that heat ten to fifteen minutes should set the whites and leave the yolks soft; the sauce insulates the eggs, so go by the look of the whites rather than the clock.
- Red pepperIn American books of this period "red pepper" means cayenne, not paprika and not a fresh bell pepper. A pinch is enough for six eggs, or two if you want it to read as seasoning.
- The cream sauceTwo tablespoons each of butter and flour to a pint of milk is a thin sauce by modern standards. Cook the roux a minute or two before adding the milk so it does not taste of raw flour, and season it fully before it goes in the dish.
- Vessel and depthUse a shallow gratin dish about 8 by 10 inches, buttered. Depth is the enemy: in a deep dish the sauce takes so long to heat through that the yolks harden before the top colours.
- Breaking the eggsCrack each egg into a cup first and slide it onto the sauce, spacing them evenly. Broken yolks bleed into the sauce and the dish loses its point.
- The cheeseHalf a cup grated is a modest amount. A dry aged cheese browns and stays crisp; a young cheddar or similar will melt into the sauce instead, which is fine but gives a softer top. If it has not coloured by the time the whites are set, thirty seconds under the broiler will do it rather than more oven time.
- YieldSix eggs serves three as a light lunch or six as part of a larger breakfast. It does not reheat well, since the yolks finish cooking on standing.
Eggs baked under a sauce belong to the family of dishes American cookbooks called shirred -- the origin of that term is obscure -- and French cookery called oeufs sur le plat or oeufs au gratin. The "a la Martin" tag is the kind of borrowed restaurant name that filled the egg chapters of turn-of-the-century books, when hotel and club cooking supplied the vocabulary that home cooks aspired to; such names were often attached loosely and are rarely traceable to a single chef or establishment. What makes it a household recipe rather than a restaurant one is the cross-reference: Mrs. Fryer tells you to make the sauce "as for baked omelet," assuming the reader is working through the chapter and already has one white sauce in her hands. Eggs, milk and a little cheese were a standard economical answer to a meatless supper or a Friday lunch, and the book was issued in a loose-leaf format.