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Luncheon Cheese and Eggs
1 cup cream
2 tablespoons grated cheese
6 eggs
Salt and pepper
Put the cream into a frying-pan and let it heat to the boilingpoint, then break in, carefully, the eggs. Lower the heat under the eggs and cook until they are set, as in poaching, spooning the cream over the top of the eggs while they are cooking. Put them on a hot platter. To the cream left in the frying-pan, add the grated cheese and seasonings. Stir until melted and pour the mixture over the eggs.
VEGETABLES
Eggs poached in cream rather than water, with a quick cheese sauce built from the poaching liquid. It comes together in under ten minutes, so have the platter warm and the table ready before the eggs go in.
- The hinge: keep the cream below a simmerBring the cream just to the boiling point, then drop the heat at once — barely trembling, no bubbles breaking. Cream held at a rolling boil while six eggs cook will tighten, separate and leave you with a greasy pan instead of a sauce.
- Pan sizeSix eggs need a wide pan, 10 to 12 inches, so the whites stay separate and the cup of cream spreads to a shallow layer rather than pooling. Anything smaller and the eggs will crowd into one sheet.
- CreamUse heavy or whipping cream, around 36% fat. Half-and-half or light cream is likelier to curdle at this heat, and it will not body up into a sauce once the cheese goes in.
- The cheeseA dry grating cheese is the likeliest reading — aged Cheddar or Parmesan. Two tablespoons is a modest amount for six eggs; three or four gives a sauce with some character. Add it off the heat and stir until it melts, since direct heat will make the cheese string.
- DonenessSet whites with liquid yolks take about 4 minutes; firmer yolks 6 to 7. Basting with the hot cream cooks the tops, so the eggs never need turning.
- SeasoningSalt the cream lightly before the eggs go in, and finish the sauce after the cheese has melted — aged cheese carries a good deal of salt of its own. A grating of nutmeg or a little cayenne suits this style of cheese sauce.
- Yield and servingTwo to three as a luncheon dish, on buttered toast or split biscuits to catch the sauce. It does not hold; serve straight from the pan.
- The stray word"VEGETABLES" at the end is the running head for the next chapter of the original book, not part of the recipe.
Cooking eggs in cream instead of water belongs to a whole family of turn-of-the-century "luncheon eggs" — shirred, baked in ramekins, en cocotte — that filled the gap between the substantial breakfast and the late dinner in middle-class American households. The Butterick company was a pattern and magazine publisher, and its cookbook is aimed squarely at the woman running a small household with little or no help: dishes that use pantry staples, need one pan, and can be built around eggs when meat is not on the menu. The technique here is essentially eggs en cocotte done on the stovetop, with the poaching cream doubling as the sauce base — the sort of economy the book is often said to favour. Grated cheese in this period usually meant whatever hard cheese was on hand — generally thought to be American factory Cheddar, sold as plain "cheese" — rather than a named variety.