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Eggs Au Gratin
6 hard-cooked eggs Salt and pepper 2 cups medium white, tomato or yellow sauce Grated cheese Buttered crums Butter Remove the shells from the eggs, slice them and arrange in a greased baking-dish. Season with salt and pepper and pour the sauce over them. Yellow sauce may be made from white sauce by adding uncooked beaten egg-yolk to white sauce. Sprinkle with grated cheese and cover with buttered crums. Bake in a moderate oven until the sauce bubbles and the crums brown.
A straightforward gratin of sliced hard-cooked eggs under sauce and crumbs. The only real decisions are the sauce and the baking time, neither of which the original spells out.
- Moderate ovenIn this period "moderate" generally meant about 350 to 375F. The dish only needs to heat through and brown, so it will not take long; watch the crumbs rather than the clock.
- "Crums"An older spelling of crumbs. Buttered crumbs means fresh or dry breadcrumbs tossed with melted butter, roughly 1 tablespoon butter to 1/2 cup crumbs, so they toast rather than steam.
- Medium white sauceIn 1929 usage this is 2 tablespoons butter and 2 tablespoons flour cooked together per cup of milk. Thin sauce used 1 tablespoon each, thick used 3 to 4. For 2 cups you need 4 tablespoons of each and 2 cups milk.
- The yellow sauceBeat the raw yolk with a little of the hot sauce first, then stir it back in off the heat. Added directly to a hot pan it scrambles into threads. The yolk finishes cooking in the oven.
- Tomato sauce versionThis would most likely have been a plain flour-thickened tomato sauce of the period rather than a garlicky Italian-style sugo; canned tomato puree thinned with stock and thickened with a roux is a close modern stand-in.
- Slice thicknessCut the eggs into rounds about 1/4 inch thick with a wetted knife, or use an egg slicer. Thicker slabs sit up out of the sauce and dry at the edges.
- Cheese"grated cheese" here most likely means a firm American or dry cheddar. About 1/2 cup is enough; more makes the top greasy where it meets the buttered crumbs.
- YieldThe original gives no yield; six eggs would serve roughly three as a light main dish, or four to six as a side or supper dish with toast. It is best eaten hot, as the whites toughen on standing.