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French Eggs
Put a lump of butter the size of an egg in a fireproof dish, mixing in when it is melted some breadcrumbs, a chopped leek, the inside of three tomatoes, pepper and salt. Let it cook for three or four minutes in the oven, then stir in the yolks of two eggs, and let it make a custard. Then break on the top of this custard as many eggs as you wish; sprinkle with pepper and salt. Let it remain in the oven till these last are beginning to set. Take out the dish, and pass over the top the salamander, or the shovel, red hot, and serve at once. I have seen this dish with the two extra whites of eggs beaten and placed in a pile in the top, and slightly browned by the shovel. CEufs Celestes (Hommage a Sir Edward Grey) Gently boil a quantity of the very best green peas in good gravy; as the gravy becomes reduced, add, instead, butter. Do not forget to have put a lump of sugar in every pint of gravy. When the peas are done break on them the required number of fresh eggs, with pepper and salt. Place all in a double saucepan, till the eggs are just done. It is a pity that in England there are no cooking pots made, which will hold fire on the top, so that a dish, such as this, becomes easily done in a few minutes.
Two baked egg dishes printed as one entry: a savoury tomato-and-leek custard with eggs set on top, and peas stewed in gravy with eggs poached over them. Both are shallow-dish cookery that depends on pulling the eggs while the yolks are still loose.
- Butter the size of an eggAbout 2 oz, or 4 tablespoons. It is a generous amount for a single gratin dish and is meant to be absorbed by the crumbs.
- Fireproof dishA shallow earthenware or cast-iron gratin dish, 8 to 9 inches across. Depth works against you here; the eggs need to sit in a single layer.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given. Moderate, 350F, suits both the initial crumb-and-tomato stage and the setting of the eggs; hotter and the whites toughen before the yolks warm through.
- The inside of three tomatoesThe pulp, seeds and juice scooped from ripe tomatoes, skins and walls discarded. Roughly half a cup. With modern watery winter tomatoes, cook the pulp down a little longer or the custard will not hold.
- The hinge: stop earlyTake the dish out when the whites are barely opaque and the yolks still wobble. Carry-over heat in a hot earthenware dish will finish them on the way to the table, and the browning step adds more.
- The salamanderA thick iron disc on a handle, heated red in the fire and held over food to glaze the top. A broiler set high, with the dish 3 to 4 inches beneath it for under a minute, does the same job. Watch it continuously.
- Double saucepanA bain-marie: a bowl or upper pan over simmering water. For the pea dish it keeps the eggs below boiling so they set as a soft poach rather than seizing.
- Sugar in the gravyA lump per pint, about a teaspoon. With modern frozen peas, which are already sweet, this is optional; it presumably offset the salt of a reduced meat gravy and helped older, starchier peas.
- YieldEach dish serves two to four, depending on how many eggs are broken on top. Allow one to two eggs a person and bread to mop the dish.
The Belgian Cook Book was compiled by Mrs. Brian Luck in 1915 from recipes collected from Belgian refugees who had fled to England after the German invasion, and sold in aid of relief funds; the voice that breaks in to complain that English pots will not hold fire on the top reads as a displaced cook missing her own stove. The second recipe's dedication is contemporary politics rather than cookery: Sir Edward Grey was British Foreign Secretary in 1914 and the public face of Britain's decision to go to war over the treaty guaranteeing Belgian neutrality, so naming a dish œufs célestes in his honour looks like a pointed compliment. The dishes themselves belong to a broad family of eggs baked or set over a savoury base, cousins to the French œufs sur le plat and to eggs poached with peas.