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Eggs and Olives
Remove the skins and stones from six olives and mince them together with a slice of cooked ham. Have ready five hard-boiled eggs, remove the shells and cut off a piece from each end so that they will stand. Cut them in halves, put the yolks into a mortar with the ham and olives and pound them to a smooth paste, adding half an ounce of butter. Sprinkle over a little red pepper and fill up the whites with the mixture; arrange them on an ornamented paper, decorate them with pieces of toast and parsley, and serve. The half eggs should have the appearance of cups, and they may be served without the paper with a little tartar sauce poured over them.
Eggs as Tripe Boil until hard a dozen eggs; when cold cut into slices; peel some small pickling onions, put them into a stewpan with a little butter, and fry over a slow fire; dredge over with flour; pour in three-quarters of a breakfast cupful each of stock and cream, and stew gently until tender; season to taste with salt and pepper. When the onions are ready, put in the eggs and leave them until hot, moving the stewpan to the side of the fire. Turn the whole out onto a hot dish, garnish with croutons of fried bread, and serve immediately.
Two egg dishes run together: a stuffed egg in the deviled style, and a creamed egg-and-onion stew served in place of tripe. Both are quick, and both depend more on how the eggs are boiled than on anything else.
- Boil the eggs gentlyHard-boiled eggs that have been held at a hard rolling boil go rubbery and grey at the yolk, which ruins both dishes. Bring to a boil, cover, take off the heat and leave 10-12 minutes, then cool in cold water.
- "Red pepper"In American cookbooks of this period red pepper means cayenne, not paprika and not sweet peppers. Use it sparingly; the filling should carry heat behind the ham and olives, not announce it.
- Half an ounce of butterOne tablespoon, softened. Pounded into five yolks with the ham and olives it gives a paste stiff enough to hold a shape when spooned or piped back into the whites.
- Mortar or food processorA small processor does the work of the mortar, but pulse rather than run it. The ham and olives should stay slightly textured; a completely smooth purée turns pasty.
- Standing the eggsTrimming a sliver from each end so the halves sit upright is the point of the presentation. Cut across rather than lengthways to get the "cups" Oscar describes.
- Breakfast cupfulA breakfast cup is larger than a teacup; the figures given for it vary, but somewhere around 8 to 10 fluid ounces is usual, so three-quarters of one comes to roughly a cup each of stock and cream, which will reduce as the onions stew.
- "Move to the side of the fire"On a coal range this meant the coolest zone. On a modern hob, drop to the lowest setting once the eggs go in: they only need warming through, and further cooking in the sauce will toughen the whites.
- Why "as tripe"The sliced whites in a floury cream-and-onion sauce mimic tripe and onions, a dish then eaten far more widely than now. Slice the eggs a little thick, about a quarter inch, or they break up in the pan.
- YieldThe stuffed eggs give ten halves, enough for four or five as a first course. The eggs as tripe will serve four to six as a light supper dish with the fried bread.
Oscar Tschirky ran the Waldorf's dining rooms rather than its stoves, and his 1896 book gathers the international repertoire a large New York hotel was expected to produce on demand, including a long run of egg cookery for luncheons and suppers. Stuffed hard-boiled eggs of this sort descend from the old English and French practice of pounding the yolks with seasonings and returning them to the whites; the word "deviled" for a cayenne-spiked dish was already current in Britain by the early nineteenth century, though Oscar does not use it here. "Eggs as tripe" belongs to a whole family of dishes named for what they imitate: tripe and onions in a floury white sauce was common cheap eating on both sides of the Atlantic, and the egg version would have offered something of the same flavour without the offal. The "ornamented paper" for serving is a reminder that this is hotel cookery, where a dish was expected to arrive looking composed.