Lent Patties

A meatless savoury from the Waldorf's Lenten repertoire: fifteen baked puff-paste shells filled with truffled soft-scrambled eggs bound with béchamel. The whole thing hinges on undercooking the eggs slightly, since the hot sauce and the residual heat of the pastry keep cooking them.

• Pull the eggs earlyStir over the lowest possible heat and take the pan off while the curd is still glossy and looser than you want to serve it. The béchamel goes in off the fire for the same reason; eggs held in warm pastry will continue to set and turn granular if they were done in the pan.
• Puff paste and the ovenOscar's vol-au-vent patties are shells of puff pastry baked until risen and dry; the book gives no temperature, so a hot oven (around 425F for roughly 18-22 minutes) is a modern equivalent, not his instruction. All-butter frozen puff pastry works; cut rounds, score an inner circle for the lid, bake, then lift off the lid and hollow out the soft interior. "Empty the pans" may mean clearing that soft centre, though the text's mention of pans as distinct from the baking-sheet suggests it could equally mean turning the baked patties out of their patty pans.
• Teacupful of béchamelTeacupful of bechamel -- A teacupful in period cookery is usually reckoned at somewhere between 4 and 6 fl oz, so figure half to three-quarters of a cup of medium-thick bechamel. It should be thick enough to coat a spoon, or it will loosen the eggs and soak the pastry.
• TrufflesThree small black truffles is a serious quantity of an expensive ingredient, and it is the heart of the dish. If fresh are out of reach, a small jar of preserved black truffle with its juice, or a spoonful of truffle paste stirred into the butter, gets closer than truffle oil does.
• Butter, twiceButter goes in with the truffles to warm them and again in small pieces with the eggs. The second addition is what keeps the curd tender; do not consolidate the two.
• Nutmeg"A little grated nutmeg" over fifteen eggs means about a quarter teaspoon, freshly grated. Pre-ground nutmeg is flatter and easier to overdo.
• Yield and timingFifteen patties serve about eight as a first course, or five as a light lunch. Bake the shells ahead and keep them warm in a 200F oven, but scramble the eggs at the last moment — filled patties do not hold.
• The napkinThe folded napkin under the patties was standard hotel presentation of the period; the recipe itself offers an ornamental dish-paper as the alternative, and a warmed plate lined with a folded cloth does the same job.