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Anchovy Omelet
Cut off a slice from a stale tinned loaf not more than a quarter of an inch thick, remove the crusts, and cut into pieces one inch square. Fry these lightly in oil or butter. Beat up some eggs into an omelet and season with pepper, salt, and a little finely-chopped parsley. Pour half of this into a small, flat, well-buttered stewpan, and cook on one side only; then remove, set the pieces of bread over it, and upon each side of bread lay a half inch of a fillet of anchovy. Make a second omelet, and lay on top of all the side of the omelet which was nearest the fire being uppermost. Set them in an oven between two plates for a few minutes, and serve with a little Spanish sauce.
This is a layered omelet rather than a folded one: two thin sheets of egg sandwiching fried croutons and anchovy. The hinge is that each sheet is cooked on one side only, so the pale, still-soft surfaces face inward and fuse in the oven.
- "Tinned loaf"A loaf baked in a rectangular tin — an ordinary square sandwich loaf. Day-old is what you want; fresh bread soaks up fat and collapses.
- The breadQuarter-inch slices cut into one-inch squares are croutons. Fry them in butter or oil until just golden and drain them, or they will weep grease into the eggs.
- "Beat up some eggs into an omelet"No quantity is given. As a rough guide, four eggs will make two thin sheets in a small pan and serve two; six will stretch to three.
- SaltSeason the eggs lightly. Anchovy fillets, whether salt-packed or in oil, carry most of the salt the dish needs.
- AnchoviesSalt-packed fillets of the period needed rinsing and boning; modern oil-packed fillets need only blotting. Half an inch of fillet per crouton is a small amount by design — this is a garnish, not a topping.
- "Small, flat, well-buttered stewpan"A shallow straight-sided pan; the recipe specifies only that it be small and flat, and a nonstick or well-seasoned skillet does the same job. Cook over moderate heat only until the underside sets and the top is still glossy, then slide it out flat.
- "An oven between two plates"The assembly is covered so it steams rather than browns. No temperature is given; a low oven and the few minutes the recipe allows are enough to set the inner surfaces, and longer will turn the eggs dry and rubbery.
- "Spanish sauce"Sauce espagnole, the brown sauce built on a dark roux and veal stock. A well-reduced brown gravy or a light demi-glace stands in for it; keep the quantity to a spoonful or two per serving.
Oscar Tschirky's book catalogues the working repertoire of a large hotel kitchen at the turn of the twentieth century, where the omelet was less a breakfast dish than a supper and luncheon item that could be built in many variations from a standing mise en place. Anchovy was one of the standard savoury accents of the period, along with Parmesan, ham and fines herbes; the salt-cured fillet supplied depth in an era before commercial glutamate seasonings. The two-sheet construction would suit a hotel kitchen, in that it allows a cook to assemble the dish in advance and finish it in the oven, which may be why the finishing instruction is a covered warm oven rather than a pan over the fire — though the recipe itself says nothing about service. Brown sauce was kept going all day in French-trained American hotel kitchens, and egg dishes sauced with espagnole appear in the cookery of the period.