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Eggs with Cream
Melt one tablespoon of butter, stir in one cup of thin cream and when hot slip in carefully four eggs, taking care that none of the yolks are broken. Season with salt, pepper and cayenne to taste. When the whites are almost done sprinkle with cheese, finish cooking and serve on four slices of toast. CHEESE SOUFFLÉ-Melt one tablespoon of butter in the blazer and stir in one tablespoon of flour. When smooth add one cup of milk and one cup of cheese cut in very small pieces. Into this drop the yolks of three eggs and stir until the mixture thickens. Beat the whites of the three eggs very stiff and fold lightly into the materials already in the chafing-dish. Put the blazer over the hot water pan, cover, and let steam for twenty minutes. Season with salt, pepper and paprika.
BANANA SAUTÉ-Put one tablespoon of butter in the blazer. Peel three bananas, cut in half lengthwise, roll lightly in flour, place in the hot butter. When well browned on one side, turn and brown on the other. Sprinkle with sugar and serve on oblongs of sponge cake.
Three separate chafing-dish preparations run together in one paragraph, all built around the two-part chafing dish: the blazer, the shallow upper pan that sits over the flame, and the hot-water pan beneath it. A heavy skillet and a bain-marie will do everything described here.
- Blazer and water panThe blazer is the metal pan directly over the alcohol lamp; setting it over the hot-water pan turns it into a double boiler. For the eggs and the bananas, use a skillet over direct heat. For the souffle, build the mixture in a saucepan, then set that pan over simmering water.
- Thin creamPeriod "thin cream" is roughly today's light cream or half-and-half, around 18 percent fat. Heavy cream will work but makes the egg dish very rich; whole milk will break more readily under heat.
- Eggs with cream, the hingeKeep the cream at a bare shiver, never a boil. The eggs are effectively poached in cream, and a rolling simmer will toughen the whites and curdle the cream before the yolks have set. Four eggs on four slices of toast serves two generously, or four at a light supper.
- "Sprinkle with cheese"Unspecified, but in an American book of this period it most likely means a firm yellow cheese — cheddar or the "store cheese" sold by the wedge. Grate it finely so it melts in the minute or two the whites need to finish.
- A cup of cheese, cut smallFor the souffle, a cup of cheese in small dice is roughly 4 oz. The pieces melt into the hot milk as it is stirred. Add the yolks off the direct flame so they thicken rather than scramble.
- Not an oven souffleTwenty minutes covered over hot water gives a steamed, custardy cheese pudding, soft and loose rather than risen and browned. Judge it done when the centre is set and no longer liquid; it will not dome, and it collapses less than a baked souffle for the same reason. Serves three or four.
- Cayenne and paprikaPaprika in this period was generally sweet and used as much for colour as heat. Cayenne is the actual heat in the egg dish — a few grains, not a pinch.
- BananasUse bananas that are still firm and barely spotted; fully ripe ones fall apart in the pan. Flour them just before frying so the coating stays dry.
This is a chafing-dish book of the early twentieth century, published at the tail end of a chafing-dish enthusiasm that had run through American middle-class households since the 1890s. The appeal was social and practical at once: a spirit lamp and a metal pan let a hostess cook at the table without servants, and let students and bachelors produce hot food in rooms with no kitchen. Whole books were devoted to the equipment, and the standard repertoire included what appears here — eggs, melted cheese, creamed shellfish, and a quick fried fruit for a sweet. All three of these are built to be finished in minutes in front of guests, which may be why the cheese "souffle" is steamed in a covered pan rather than baked, and why the banana sauté is served on cut sponge cake rather than anything that needs an oven.