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Eggs in Crusts
Take several thin rounds of bread and cut in pieces three inches in diameter, then with a small thin cutter an inch and a half in diameter cut the center out of each round, leaving an unbroken ring. Melt a sufficient quantity of butter in a fryingpan, put in the rings, and fry until slightly brown. Butter a dish, lay the rings in it, break a raw egg into each ring, being careful not to disturb the yolks; baste with a few tablespoonfuls of sour cream, and dust over a small quantity of salt. Cover the dish, put it in the oven, and leave it until the whites are set, but they must not be allowed to brown. When cooked, lift the eggs in their rings carefully out of the baking-dish, using a skimmer for the purpose, and lay them on a hot dish covered with a folded napkin or an ornamental dish-paper, garnish with watercresses, and serve.
A shirred-egg dish that depends entirely on stopping while the whites are barely set. Everything else is assembly.
- Oven temperatureThe original names none. Bake covered at around 350F; covering the dish, as the recipe directs, shields the tops from direct heat, which is presumably how the whites are kept from browning.
- TimingExpect 10 to 14 minutes for whites just opaque and yolks still liquid. Pull the dish before the whites look fully firm, since they carry over on the hot serving plate.
- The bread ringsThe original calls for thin rounds. Use a firm white sandwich loaf with a close crumb; a coarse open crumb lets the white run through the crust.
- Frying the ringsBrown one side only, or lightly on both, and keep them pale. They get a second cooking in the oven and will go bitter if taken far in the pan.
- Sour creamPeriod sour cream was cream soured naturally and was likely looser than the modern cultured tub product. If today's sour cream is too stiff to baste with, slacken it with a spoonful of milk or cream.
- SkimmerThe recipe specifies a skimmer. A wide slotted fish spatula does the job; the ring must come out level or the yolk breaks.
- Soft yolksThe yolks are meant to stay runny, which is fine for most eaters but not for anyone pregnant, very young, elderly or immunocompromised. Pasteurized shell eggs are the answer there.
- Yield and servingFigure two rings per person as a first course or brunch dish, three if it is the whole plate. Serve immediately; a baked egg held warm continues cooking and the crust softens.
Eggs baked in a buttered dish, the French oeufs sur le plat or shirred eggs, were standard hotel breakfast and supper fare in the late nineteenth century, and the bread ring does useful work: it keeps each egg in a neat round, gives the fork something to cut against, and turns a plain egg into an individual portion that can be lifted and plated without breaking. Oscar Tschirky's Cook Book (1896) came out of the Waldorf's kitchens, where a dish like this would go out on a folded napkin or a paper doily, cut with a cutter to the inch and a half. The eggs are basted with sour cream.