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Planked Eggs
1 cup finely chopped cooked ham or corned beef 1 cup crums Cream 6 poached eggs Garnish of tomato slices Green-pepper rings 1 quart mashed potato Mix the meat with the crums and enough cream to make a paste. Spread the mixture on a heated plank of suitable size. Around the edge of the plank make a narrow border of mashed potato and inside the border make six nests of the potato. Slip a poached egg into each nest and set in the oven until the potato turns a delicate brown. Garnish with alternate slices of tomato and green-pepper rings.
A plank dinner built around poached eggs, meant to come to the table on the wooden board it browned on. Everything can be prepared ahead; the oven stage is only long enough to color the potato.
- CrumsThe recipe does not specify; soft breadcrumbs from the interior of a day-old loaf suit the paste better than dry commercial crumbs, which drink up far more cream and stiffen the meat mixture.
- CreamAdd it a spoonful at a time. You want a mixture that holds its shape when spread, roughly the consistency of a thick spread, not a batter.
- The plankAn untreated hardwood plank (oak, hickory, maple), well oiled and heated in the oven before use. No varnish, no glue-laminated board, no softwood. If you have no plank, an oiled cast-iron or heavy oval gratin dish does the same work.
- Oven temperatureThe original gives none. Browning mashed potato without overcooking the eggs wants a hot oven, 425-450F, for a short time, or a broiler for a minute or two watched closely.
- Poach the eggs soft and slightly underdoneThey finish in the oven. Poach until the whites are just set, lift into cold water, drain well, then nest them. Wet eggs will make the potato borders slump.
- Piping the potatoA quart of mashed potato is about 4 cups, enough for a border and six nests; the recipe specifies only "a plank of suitable size." Stiff, well-drained potato pipes cleanly and browns better than loose, buttery mash.
- The garnish goes on lastRaw tomato slices and pepper rings are arranged after the plank leaves the oven. Baked, they weep and the plank looks waterlogged.
- ServingSix eggs, so six portions as a light supper or brunch dish; the plank goes straight to the table on a folded cloth or trivet, as it will be very hot.
Planked cookery was a restaurant flourish that moved into American home kitchens in the early twentieth century, when planked steak and planked shad were signs of a good hotel grill. The wooden board served as cooking surface, platter and showpiece at once, and the usual finish was a piped border of mashed potato that browned under the heat while the center stayed moist. By the time New Delineator Recipes appeared, planks were sold as kitchen equipment and the format was also applied to cheaper materials -- here chopped leftover ham or corned beef, breadcrumbs and potato, made presentable by poached eggs and a rim of tomato and green pepper. It belongs to the same thrift tradition as croquettes and timbales: a small amount of cooked meat stretched with a starch and dressed to look deliberate.