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Scalloped Eggs
Slice 6 hard boiled eggs thin, place a layer of cracker crumbs in a basin, then a layer of eggs, put salt, pepper and butter on each layer, put these in alternately and moisten with milk, place in oven and when it is well browned serve warm.
A plain baked egg scallop of the sort that turned six eggs and a handful of stale crackers into supper. The original assumes you know the proportions, so the main work is filling them in.
- Basin means baking dishIn this period a "basin" is any deep round dish; here it means a buttered oven-proof one, roughly a quart. A 1-quart casserole or an 8-inch pie plate does the job.
- Oven temperatureNo heat is given. A moderate oven, 350-375F, for 20-25 minutes, until the top is browned and the milk is set rather than sloshing. Nothing in the dish is raw, so browning is the only doneness cue.
- Working quantitiesSix eggs want about 1 1/2 cups coarse cracker crumbs, 2 to 3 tablespoons butter dotted over the layers, and roughly 3/4 to 1 cup milk. Serves three or four as a light main dish.
- Cracker crumbs then vs nowThe crackers meant here are most likely soda or common crackers, generally less salty than a modern saltine. If you use saltines or Ritz, go easy on the added salt or the dish can turn brackish as the milk reduces.
- Finish with crumbs, not eggsThe recipe does not say which layer goes on top, but it browns best if that layer is crumbs and butter; egg left exposed on the surface tends to dry and grey at the edges.
- Moisten, do not floodThe milk should soak the crumbs and pool just below the top layer. Too much and you get a loose custard with sliced egg suspended in it; too little and the interior bakes dry.
- Boiling the eggsTen to twelve minutes in barely simmering water, then straight into cold water, gives firm yolks without the grey-green ring. Slice with a wet knife or an egg slicer so the rounds hold together in the layers.
"Scalloped" is generally traced to food served in scallop shells, and by the nineteenth century it had come to mean anything layered with buttered crumbs and baked, whether or not a shell was involved. Scalloped eggs belong to the large family of American cookery-book dishes built to stretch a few cheap protein-rich ingredients with stale bread or crackers, and they appear in the economical and Lenten sections of household manuals, where eggs stood in for meat. Books titled Reliable Recipes were typically compiled collections, often issued by baking powder and flour companies or by church and club committees, and their entries read like this one: short on quantities, and written for cooks who already knew what a browned crumb top should look like.