Chafing-dish Dainties (Eggs which have been broken)

This is the tail end of a chafing-dish egg dish — tomato and mushrooms stewed in the pan, then eggs broken over them and stirred to a soft set. The opening lines with the quantities are missing, so treat what follows as method rather than a full recipe.

• What is missingThe lost first half presumably had mushrooms and stewed or fresh tomato cooked down in the chafing dish before the eggs go in; fat, quantities and the number of eggs are all lost and cannot be recovered from what survives. Note that the surviving text never mentions salt or pepper.
• The chafing dishA chafing dish is a pan over a spirit lamp, often set above a hot-water pan. Work the blazer directly over the flame to soften the mushrooms and tomato, then, if your dish has a water pan, set it in that before the eggs go in; gentle heat suits the soft set called for. A heavy skillet over the lowest gas setting does the same job.
• Why a silver or wooden forkOrdinary steel of the period stained and picked up a metallic taste from egg sulphur and tomato acid. Any modern stainless or silicone tool is fine; the point of the instruction is the lifting motion, not the metal.
• Lift, do not stirThe whites are folded up in sheets so they set in curds while the yolks stay whole, then the yolks are pricked at the last moment so they thicken the whole into a sauce. Stirring from the start gives you ordinary scrambled eggs with tomato in them.
• TimingGo by appearance rather than the clock, and pull it off the flame while it still looks slightly underdone; the residual heat in the pan carries it further, and reheated soft eggs turn watery.
• ServingCut the toast just before you dish up and serve immediately; this is a dish that will not wait, which suits cooking at table rather than at the kitchen range. No quantities survive, so the yield cannot be stated.