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Stuffed Eggs
Take twelve hard-boiled eggs, peel off the shells, cut them transversely in halves, remove the yolks, and put them in a mortar. Skin and bone eight anchovies, moisten them together with a little butter and some breadcrumbs, with a little milk, and pound with the yolks of the three raw eggs, seasoning to taste. Fry in a stewpan two tablespoonfuls of chopped onions until brown; add a teacupful of chopped mushrooms, season with powdered sweet herbs, and sprinkle over breadcrumbs and chopped parsley; when cool, mix them with the pounded preparation. Fill the whites of the eggs with this. Melt some butter in a stewpan, put in the eggs, the cut side uppermost, and bake in a moderate oven for twenty minutes, basting now and then with butter. Put two halves together, arrange them in a circle on a dish with sprigs of parsley in the center and round the base of the eggs, and serve.
A hot stuffed egg rather than a chilled deviled one: the filling is bound with raw yolk and set in the oven, which makes it closer to a small forcemeat than a mayonnaise salad. Two things need watching — the quantity of filling and the fact that Oscar's "three raw eggs" appear from nowhere.
- The raw yolks are the binderThe three raw yolks are what sets the filling in the oven; without them the mixture slumps and weeps butter. They are cooked through in the 20-minute bake, so there is no raw-egg concern here.
- Moderate ovenRead this as 350F. Twenty minutes at that heat sets the filling and lightly colors the tops; much hotter and the whites toughen and go leathery at the edges.
- Teacupful and stewpanA teacupful in this period is usually reckoned at roughly 3/4 cup, so about 3/4 cup chopped mushrooms. A stewpan is a straight-sided saucepan — a skillet or saute pan will do both the onion frying and the buttered baking.
- The mortarA food processor handles the yolks, anchovies, butter and crumbs in seconds, but pulse rather than run it; overworked yolk turns gluey. A fork and a bowl are perfectly adequate for twelve eggs.
- AnchoviesEight fillets for twelve eggs is assertive but not overwhelming, and the anchovies carry much of the salt, the recipe leaving the rest to "seasoning to taste." If using salt-packed anchovies, rinse them; if using oil-packed fillets, blot them and hold back on any additional salt until you have tasted.
- Powdered sweet herbsA dried mix of thyme, marjoram, savory and sometimes basil, ground fine. About a teaspoon of dried thyme and marjoram together is in the right range.
- Too much filling for the whitesThe mushroom-onion mixture roughly doubles the volume, so the whites will not hold it all. Mound it generously and bake any surplus in a small buttered dish alongside — it is good on toast.
- BastingThe butter in the pan is there to keep the exposed filling from drying and cracking. Spoon it over two or three times; if the pan runs dry, add more butter rather than letting the eggs brown on the bottom.
- YieldTwelve eggs give twenty-four halves, reassembled into twelve whole eggs — a first course for six, or a platter for eight to ten as part of a spread. Serve warm; they are dull cold.
Stuffed eggs are one of the oldest continuous dishes in European cookery, appearing in medieval and Renaissance Italian kitchens long before "deviled" entered English usage in the eighteenth century. What is notable about this one is the construction: hard-boiled whites treated as a case for a bound forcemeat, finished in the oven with butter, then reassembled into whole eggs and set in a ring with parsley in the center. That was the hotel manner around 1896 ecord everything returned to its original shape and presented as a composed dish rather than a plate of halves. The mushroom-and-onion duxelles worked into the yolks, and the seasoning by "powdered sweet herbs" from a jar, are part of the same manner.