Salad Eggs

A deviled egg by another name, stiffened with anchovy rather than vinegar. The ingredient list is scrambled in the original two-column setting; read it as six eggs, a tablespoon each of butter, anchovy paste and cream, half a teaspoon of mustard, a pinch of cayenne, and salt.

• Cut the saltA full teaspoon of salt on top of a tablespoon of anchovy paste will overwhelm six yolks. Mix the filling first, taste, and add salt only if it needs it — most anchovy pastes are salty enough on their own.
• Cut from the top, not the sideCut from the top -- The recipe takes a large piece off the top of each egg rather than halving it, so the yolk cavity is hollowed from one end with a small spoon. If you want the eggs to sit upright rather than lie on the greens, take a thin slice off the wide end as well.
• MustardIn a recipe of this period this most likely means dry mustard powder rather than prepared mustard from a jar. Half a teaspoon of powder is assertive; if you substitute prepared mustard, use about twice as much and hold back the cream slightly.
• Anchovy pasteStill sold in tubes and essentially unchanged. A tablespoon is roughly two mashed anchovy fillets if you have those instead.
• Getting the filling smoothPress the yolks through a sieve before working in the butter, which should be soft rather than melted. Lumpy yolk is the usual failure here, and no amount of beating afterwards fixes it.
• CressProbably garden or curly cress rather than watercress; watercress substitutes perfectly well, and either is sturdier than a soft leaf lettuce under the weight of a stuffed egg.
• Yield and timingSix eggs serve three to six depending on the rest of the table. The filling can be made several hours ahead, but fill and garnish close to serving so the yolk mixture does not dry and crack.