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Eggs Fried in Brown Butter
Break the eggs gently on a plate taking care not to injure the yolks, then dredge with salt and pepper. Put two ounces of butter in a fryingpan over a brisk fire; when beginning to brown, move it to the side; put another two ounces of butter in a separate fryingpan and place over the fire until hot; then place the eggs in carefully to avoid breaking the yolks, and spread the brown butter over them. When the whites are set, turn the eggs out onto a hot dish; sprinkle a small quantity of vinegar or a squeeze of lemon juice over them; garnish with fried parsley and serve, or they may be served on hot buttered toast.
Fried Eggs, Provincial Style Pour two tablespoonfuls of oil or warmed butter into a fryingpan on the fire; when heated, break an egg into a cup, season with salt and pepper, drop it into the oil, baste, turn it over, and when of a good color on both sides, take out and drain on a wire-sieve. Cook twelve eggs altogether allowing two minutes for each. When all are done, trim them and serve on a dish with pieces of fried bread between them Pour over one-half pint of reduced Spanish sauce with the zest of a lemon and six sliced mushrooms added to it. Serve very hot.
Two versions of the same idea: eggs cooked in fat hot enough to color them, then sharpened with acid or sauce. Both are quick, and both depend on managing the butter rather than the eggs.
- The hinge: two pans, not oneThe butter that browns is not the butter the eggs cook in. Brown one batch to a nutty amber and hold it off the heat while the eggs set gently in fresh butter, then spoon the brown butter over. Cooking the eggs directly in browning butter gives you scorched whites and a bitter, black butter.
- "A brisk fire"Medium-high under the browning pan, medium under the egg pan. Butter goes from hazelnut to burnt in well under a minute, so pull it the moment it smells toasted and the milk solids are tan.
- Quantities and yieldFour ounces of butter total, two in each pan. The first recipe gives no egg count; two ounces of cooking butter comfortably handles four to six eggs, serving two or three.
- The vinegarThis is the classic finish for brown butter with eggs, and it is not optional decoration. A teaspoon of good wine vinegar, or the lemon, cuts the fat and is the whole point of the dish. Add it to the hot pan after the eggs come out if you want it to sizzle and reduce slightly.
- Fried parsleyWhole flat-leaf sprigs, bone dry, dropped into hot fat for ten to fifteen seconds until they stop sputtering and turn brilliant green. Wet parsley will spit violently; shake and pat it first.
- Spanish sauceSauce espagnole, the brown mother sauce built on browned mirepoix, tomato and brown stock. Half a pint is one cup. A well-reduced brown veal or beef gravy stands in for it; add the lemon zest and sliced mushrooms only at the end so the mushrooms keep their texture.
- Two minutes per eggIn the Provincial version the eggs appear to be cooked one at a time, basted and flipped, which on a literal reading of 'two minutes for each' would put twelve eggs at around twenty-four minutes; the text does not give a total. Hold the finished ones on a rack somewhere warm, or work in a wide pan and cook three or four at once.
- Serving the second dishTwelve eggs with fried bread and a cup of sauce serves six as a lunch or supper course.
This is oeufs au beurre noir, one of the small classic egg preparations of the nineteenth-century French repertoire. Despite the name, the butter was meant to reach the hazelnut stage rather than true black; the vinegar finish is what keeps the browned butterfat from sitting heavily. The second recipe, "Provincial Style," is a hotel treatment: eggs fried individually in oil, drained, trimmed, and dressed with sauce espagnole. Trimming fried eggs seems fussy now, but uniformity on the platter mattered in a professional kitchen.