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Scrambled Eggs with Dried Beef
Cut half a pound of dried beef, sliced thin, into short match-like strips, cover with boiling water, drain at once, and add six eggs, beaten slightly, and one-fourth a cup of milk. Put two tablespoonfuls of butter into the blazer; when hot add the eggs and other ingredients, and stir and cook until the eggs are set.
A chafing-dish standby that works just as well in a skillet, provided you keep the heat low and remember that the beef has already salted the dish for you.
- The blazerThe blazer is the upper pan of a chafing dish, set directly over the flame. A heavy 10-inch nonstick or well-seasoned skillet over low heat is the modern equivalent; here the pan sits directly over the flame, so keep the heat gentle and resist the urge to cook these fast.
- Dried beefThis is chipped beef, still sold in jars or in thin sheets at the deli counter. It is heavily salted and cured; the boiling-water rinse is not optional, and no additional salt should go into the eggs.
- Drain at onceThe beef is covered and drained immediately, not soaked. Longer contact with water leaves the strips limp and waterlogged rather than merely de-salted.
- Half a poundEight ounces of chipped beef against six eggs is a beef-forward ratio by current taste. Three to four ounces gives a better balance if you want the eggs to read as eggs.
- Until the eggs are setThe instruction suggests firmer curds than many cooks want today. Pull the pan when the curds are still glossy and slightly loose; they will carry on cooking in the residual heat.
- ButterTwo tablespoons for six eggs is generous but suits the method, keeping the eggs from tightening against the pan over a low flame. Reduce it only if you are using nonstick.
- YieldServes three to four as a supper dish, more if spooned over toast.
Dried beef was one of the few preserved meats that kept well in a city flat without ice, which is exactly why it turns up so often in chafing-dish books. The chafing dish itself had a vogue in America from roughly the 1890s through the First World War, promoted as the apparatus of the bachelor, the college student and the hostess who wanted to cook in front of her guests rather than disappear to the kitchen — hence a repertoire built on things that cook in minutes from shelf-stable parts: dried beef, canned lobster, cheese, eggs. The same combination of chipped beef and a dairy binder also appears as creamed chipped beef on toast, an army mess staple with a well-known unofficial name.