Stuffed Eggs
Cut four "hard-boiled" eggs in halves crosswise; remove yolks, mash, and add two tablespoons grated cheese, one teaspoon vinegar, one-fourth teaspoon mustard, and salt and cayenne to taste. Add enough melted butter to make mixture of the right consistency to shape. Make in balls size of original yolks, and refill whites. Arrange on a serving dish, pour around one cup White Sauce, cover, and reheat.
A hot version of deviled eggs, dressed in white sauce. Two details decide whether it works: eggs cooked gently enough to stay tender, and a sauce thin enough to flow.
- Hard-cooked, not hard-boiledThe quotation marks around "hard-boiled" are Farmer's own; she directed elsewhere that eggs be cooked in water held below the boil rather than boiled hard. Cover the eggs with boiling water and hold them off the heat, below a simmer, until the yolks are set, then chill in cold water so the shells slip and the yolks stay yellow rather than grey-green.
- Crosswise halvesCutting across the short axis, not lengthwise, gives eight cups that sit upright in the sauce. Trim a thin sliver from the rounded end of each if they tip.
- The cheeseGrated cheese in a book of this date would most likely have been a dry aged cheddar or an imported Parmesan. Either works; a sharp cheddar gives more flavor, Parmesan more salt, so season at the end.
- Butter as binderMelted butter is the only thing holding the filling together, so it must be warm when you shape the balls and it will firm up as it cools. Roughly 1 to 2 tablespoons for four yolks; add it by teaspoons until the mixture just holds a shape.
- White SauceA white sauce of this kind runs to about 2 tablespoons butter, 2 tablespoons flour, and 1 cup milk with salt and pepper. Keep it pourable — it should surround the eggs, not blanket them.
- ReheatingThe recipe says only to cover and reheat; warm the dish gently just until heated through. Longer and the whites turn rubbery and the sauce skins over; the eggs are already cooked and only need heating.
- CayenneA pinch is genuinely a pinch here; the recipe leaves the amount to taste. Period recipes used cayenne where a modern one might use a dash of hot sauce.
- YieldEight halves, enough for four as a light lunch dish with toast, or for two as a supper course.
Stuffed eggs of this kind sit at the point where a cold picnic dish meets a hot luncheon course. The seasoning — mustard, vinegar, cayenne, cheese — is the standard nineteenth-century "deviling" formula, applied to eggs rather than to the ham or crab it more often flavored; the word deviled for something sharply seasoned was already common English usage well before this book appeared in 1896. What makes the Boston version distinctive is the white sauce poured around and the return to the oven, turning finger food into something eaten with a fork.