Ox Eyes
4 round slices bread 1 beaten egg Pinch of salt 1/2 cup milk 4 eggs Cut the bread two inches thick; remove the crust and with a round biscuit-cutter take the center out of each slice. Add the milk and salt to the beaten egg; place the bread in a buttered baking dish and baste with the egg and milk. Break an egg in the center of each slice; place in a hot oven and bake until the whites of the eggs are set.
A baked version of the egg-in-a-hole, with the bread turned into a shallow custard-soaked cup. Nothing here is obsolete, but the proportions assume a loaf and an oven unlike ours.
- "A hot oven"Conventionally somewhere around 400-450F. At that heat the whites should set in roughly ten minutes or so while the bread edges crisp; a cooler oven risks leaving the bread soggy before the eggs firm.
- Two-inch breadSlice it yourself from an unsliced white or country loaf. Standard sandwich bread is under an inch and will collapse under the custard and the egg; the whole point is a wall high enough to hold the white in a round.
- The cut-outA 2 to 2.5-inch round cutter leaves enough rim. Push the cutter through only part way and hollow out the crumb if you want a floor under the egg, which keeps the white from spreading across the dish.
- Basting, not soakingThe egg-and-milk mixture is spooned over the bread so it absorbs without turning to pap. Do it in two or three passes, giving the bread a moment between them, and leave the hollow dry.
- Doneness"Until the whites are set" means opaque and no longer trembling; the yolks will still be soft. Cover loosely with foil if the exposed yolks are filming over before the whites firm.
- YieldFour slices, four eggs, four servings as a breakfast dish, or two if it is the whole meal. The single beaten egg and half cup of milk are for the basting, not for the hollows.
- The dishButter the baking dish generously and choose one that holds the four rounds snugly, so any egg white that escapes the bread is contained rather than spread thin and leathery.
The name is descriptive: a round of egg white with a yolk staring out of the middle of a bread ring, the same conceit behind the many regional names for the fried version, from egg-in-a-basket to bird's nest. The book belongs to the era of the professional cooking-school teacher, when American domestic-science instructors were building repertoires of standardized, teachable dishes. The egg-and-milk basting uses one egg to make four slices of ordinary bread taste like something closer to French toast.