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Caviar with Eggs
Cut off from stale French rolls some slices about a third of an inch thick; spread on them anchovy butter or fry them lightly in butter. Spread over each slice a thick layer of caviar, then squeeze over a little lemon juice and add a seasoning of salt and pepper. Have prepared some hard boiled eggs, peel them and cut them into slices, using a very sharp knife; lay the slices of egg, one on each side of the bread, and serve on a dish on which has been laid an ornamental paper. A bit of chopped mustard and cress salad spread over the caviar is an improvement.
A canapé from the Waldorf's cold larder, and about as simple as it looks — the only real technique is in the slicing and the restraint with salt.
- Salt first, or rather not at allCaviar is already salted, and anchovy butter more so. Taste before adding any of the seasoning called for; most modern caviar and lumpfish roe will need none.
- Stale French rollsA day-old baguette or a firm white roll. Staleness matters here: fresh crumb tears under the caviar and turns soggy under the lemon juice. Cut a scant 1/3 inch, or about 8 mm.
- Anchovy butterNot a shop item in most places now. Mash 2-3 oil-packed anchovy fillets into 4 oz (115 g) softened unsalted butter with a squeeze of lemon. It keeps a week refrigerated.
- Fried or spread, not bothThe recipe offers a choice. If you fry the slices in butter, cool them completely before the caviar goes on — warm bread slumps the eggs and dulls the roe.
- Which caviarWild sturgeon caviar is now restricted and expensive; farmed sturgeon, trout roe, salmon roe or good lumpfish roe all work. Spoon it on with a non-metal spoon and do not spread it thin — the original says a thick layer.
- Egg slicingCold eggs, straight from the refrigerator, cut with a wetted thin blade or an egg slicer. Room-temperature yolks crumble. Only the centre slices will be neat; save the ends for something else.
- Mustard and cressThe English seedling mix of white mustard and garden cress. Ordinary watercress, snipped fine, or micro radish greens stand in well.
- Yield and timingFigure about 1 oz of roe per 4 pieces. Assemble within half an hour of serving, since the lemon juice will begin to soften the bread.
Caviar canapés were fixed furniture on American hotel menus in the 1890s, when Oscar Tschirky was maître d'hôtel at the Waldorf and Russian sturgeon roe was still a plentiful, if fashionable, import — some of it in fact came from American sturgeon fisheries on the Delaware and the Great Lakes, which were shipping heavily until overfishing collapsed them early in the twentieth century. The construction here is textbook garde-manger of the period: a fried or buttered crouton, a rich cold topping, a garnish arranged with visible symmetry, and the whole thing set out on a paper doily, which was as much a mark of proper hotel service as the food. The pairing of caviar with hard-boiled egg has stayed put ever since, and survives in the little bowls of sieved yolk and white that still accompany a caviar service.