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Eggs à La Caracas
1 tablespoon butter
Salt and pepper
¼ pound dried beef
4 eggs
1 tablespoon grated cheese
Onion-juice
1 cup tomatoes
Melt the butter in a frying-pan and, when hot, add the dried beef and cheese. Toss lightly until the beef is slightly frizzled, add the tomatoes, the seasonings, and the eggs beaten until light. Stir and cook gently until of a creamy consistency.
A scrambled-egg supper dish built on dried beef, cheese and tomato. It comes together in a few minutes, and the whole thing hinges on low heat.
- Quantity of beefThe dried beef is a quarter pound, four ounces, as printed. That is roughly one small jar or packet of sliced dried beef, torn or shredded into bite-size pieces.
- Dried beef todayChipped or dried beef is salt-cured and sold thinly sliced, often in jars. It is very salty; rinse and pat dry if you are sensitive, and hold back on added salt until the eggs are nearly set.
- Tomatoes"1 cup tomatoes" most likely means canned or stewed tomatoes with their juice, though the recipe does not say. Drain some liquid off or the eggs will be watery; chopped canned tomatoes, well drained, work best.
- Onion-juiceGrated onion pressed through a sieve, used where a cook wanted onion flavour without visible pieces. About a teaspoon of the juice, or half a teaspoon of grated onion, is right for four eggs.
- Heat control"Cook gently until of a creamy consistency" is the whole instruction that matters. Keep the pan on low, stir steadily, and pull it off while the mixture still looks slightly loose — it will keep setting off the heat.
- CheeseA tablespoon of grated hard cheese, most likely aged Cheddar or a dry Parmesan-type. It is a seasoning here, not a melted layer.
- YieldFour eggs feeds two generously or three at a light supper. The recipe gives no serving instruction; buttered toast suits it.
Dried beef was one of the great American convenience foods of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: shelf-stable, cheap, and sold sliced paper-thin, it turned up creamed on toast, in scrambles, and in chafing-dish suppers. Names like "à la Caracas" were fashionable garnish in the period, though what exactly they were meant to signal, and whether any genuine Venezuelan connection was intended, is not clear. The Butterick book, published by a pattern company for a home-sewing readership, aimed squarely at the housekeeper working without staff, and this recipe shows the type: one pan, pantry ingredients, and a quick supper.