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Eggs in Jelly
Boil ten or a dozen eggs until quite hard; then peel and cut into halves, lengthwise. Take as many patty-pans as there are halves of eggs, put in each pan half an egg, and pour over sufficient savory jelly to cover it; lay a thin slice of ham over each, and leave them until quite cold and the jelly is set. Turn the jelly out onto an ornamental dish, garnish with a few sprays of parsley, and serve.
A cold buffet dish that stands or falls on the jelly: it has to be clear, firm enough to unmould, and set in stages so the egg does not float. Everything else is assembly.
- Patty-pansSmall shallow tartlet or bun tins, roughly 2 to 2½ inches across and an inch deep. A shallow muffin tin, small ramekins or dariole moulds all work; you need one hollow per egg half, so 20 to 24 in all.
- Savory jellyAspic — clarified veal, chicken or ham stock set with gelatin. For an unmoulded jelly go firmer than a table jelly: about 1 tablespoon (one envelope) of powdered gelatin per 1½ cups of cold, degreased, well-seasoned stock. Season it assertively; chilling flattens salt and acid.
- Set it in layersThis is the hinge. Pour a shallow film of jelly into each pan and let it set, then lay the egg half cut-side down and pour the rest around it. Flood the whole thing at once and the egg lifts and tilts, and it will unmould crooked.
- Hard-boiled eggsTen to twelve minutes at a bare simmer, then straight into ice water. Overcooking gives the grey-green sulphur ring around the yolk, which shows badly through clear jelly. Peel under running water and halve with a wet thin-bladed knife for a clean face.
- The hamCut each slice to a disc the size of the pan so it forms a flat base for the finished jelly. A dry-cured or boiled ham sliced thin is right; anything thick will hold the jelly off the rim and break the seal.
- Chilling and turning out"Quite cold" means at least three to four hours in the refrigerator, longer if the moulds are deep. Dip each pan in hot water for three or four seconds only, run a fine knife round the edge and invert onto the platter.
- Yield and serviceTwenty to twenty-four pieces, enough for a buffet of ten or so as a first course. Keep them refrigerated until the moment they go out and eat them the same day if you can; aspic tends to weep and lose its clarity as it stands.
Aspic was the show-off medium of the late nineteenth-century cold table, and a hotel kitchen such as the Waldorf's would have had a steady supply of it as a by-product of the stockpot — veal bones and calf's feet yielding jelly that was clarified with egg white and used to glaze, line and set almost anything. Commercially packaged powdered gelatin, which reached American households in the closing decades of the century, put the same effect within reach of cooks who had no stockpot at all, and cold moulded dishes spread from the hotel buffet to the domestic supper table. Oscar Tschirky, the Swiss-born maître d'hôtel whose name carries this book, was not the chef but the man who ran the dining rooms, and the collection reflects that vantage: dishes chosen for how they look coming out to a room. Eggs in jelly is a thrifty version of the genre — hard-boiled eggs and a slice of ham, dressed up by the mould and the parsley into something fit for a buffet.