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Scrambled Eggs with Dried Beef
1/4 pound dried beef 3 eggs 3 tablespoons cold water 1 tablespoon butter Melt butter in frying pan; add dried beef, which has been picked into small pieces; heat thoroughly, then pour in the eggs, which have been beaten with the cold water, until light. As soon as eggs begin to set, stir and keep stirring until cooked. Serve on hot toast.
A two-minute skillet dish that depends entirely on heat control and on how salty your beef is.
- Dried beef todayOld-fashioned dried beef came in a slab or in loose sheets from a jar; the modern equivalent is the thin-sliced pressed beef sold in jars or vacuum packs near the lunch meats. A quarter pound is roughly two of the small 2.25 oz jars.
- Soak if it is very saltyDried beef of this period was often saltier than current brands. Taste a shred first; if it stings, cover the picked pieces with hot water for a minute and drain before it goes in the butter. The recipe itself adds no salt.
- Heat, do not fry"Heat thoroughly" means warming the beef in the butter for under a minute. Left longer over a brisk flame it curls and turns leathery, and the butter browns.
- The cold waterThree tablespoons of water to three eggs is a period technique for lighter, softer curds — the water turns to steam as the eggs set. Milk or cream can be used instead and gives a denser result.
- The hingeLow heat and constant stirring. Scrambled eggs are done when they still look slightly underset, since they carry on cooking off the heat; taken to the point where they look finished in the pan, they weep.
- YieldServes two on toast, or one as a substantial breakfast. Have the toast ready before the eggs go in — the dish will not wait.
Dried beef was one of the workhorse shelf-stable proteins of the American kitchen before home refrigeration: salted, sometimes smoked, and sliced paper-thin, it was said to keep well without refrigeration and could stretch three eggs into a meal for two. Among its appearances in period cookery are this scramble and creamed chipped beef on toast, both of them breakfast and supper dishes rather than dinner, along with frizzled preparations, gravies, sandwiches and hashes. The New Royal Cook Book was published by the Royal Baking Powder Company, one of the many branded promotional cookbooks that circulated free or for pennies in the early twentieth century; such books set plain everyday cooking like this alongside their baking-powder recipes.