No. 2853

Eggs au Miroir a la Meyerbeer

Œufs au Miroir a la Meyerbeer

Peel off the skin from two mutton kidneys; split them lengthwise on the roundest side without separating the parts, run two small wooden skewers through each kidney, season and roll in oil, then broil for eight or ten minutes, turning them over in the meanwhile. Cook two eggs in a china dish (Fig. 567), having them glossy on top; cut them round-shaped with a two and a half inch pastry cutter and take them up with a palette and dress on a hot dish with some tomato sauce (No. 549) underneath. After removing the kidneys from the fire glaze them with a brush, pull out the skewers and divide each one in two. Dress them on both sides of the eggs, the cut side uppermost, and fill the hollow with a consistent Perigueux sauce (No. 517); serve.

← No. 2852 Eggs au Miroir a la Lully Eggs & Omelets No. 2854 Eggs au Miroir a la Provencal (œufs au Miroi →

For the Modern Kitchen

A composed egg plate from Delmonico's kitchen: two shirred eggs trimmed into rounds, flanked by split broiled kidneys filled with truffle sauce. The assembly is fussy but the cooking is quick, so have both sauces hot before the eggs go on.

Mutton kidneysBuy lamb kidneys, which are what most butchers sell today and are milder than true mutton. As written, two kidneys and two eggs make one or two servings; figure one kidney per portion.
Splitting and skeweringButterfly each kidney along the convex side without cutting through, then run two thin bamboo skewers crosswise so it stays flat over the heat. Snip out the white core at the hinge before oiling and seasoning.
Broiling timeEight to ten minutes suggests a coal grill with the meat set some distance from the fire, though Ranhofer does not describe the setup. Under a modern broiler or on a hot grill, lamb kidneys are usually done in about 4 to 6 minutes total and turn grainy past that; pull them while still faintly pink inside.
The china dishThe book calls for a china dish (Fig. 567), a shallow individual egg dish. Any small ovenproof gratin dish or individual pie plate does the job, buttered and just large enough that the whites spread thin.
"Glossy on top" is the hingeAu miroir means the surface stays smooth and reflective, so the eggs are cooked gently and never agitated; Ranhofer does not say how the dish was heated. A moderate oven, in the region of 325-350F for 6 to 8 minutes, or a covered pan over low heat, will set the white while the yolk stays liquid and unclouded.
Cutting the roundsThe whites must be firm enough to hold an edge or the cutter will simply drag. Let the dish stand a minute off the heat, blot any surface fat, then press straight down with a 2.5-inch cutter and lift with a thin offset spatula.
GlazingTo glaze here means brushing with meat glaze -- reduced brown stock thick enough to coat, what a modern kitchen calls glace de viande. A few spoonfuls of demi-glace reduced until syrupy gives the same shine.
The two saucesNo. 549 is Ranhofer's plain tomato sauce; No. 517 is Perigueux, a Madeira-spiked demi-glace with chopped truffle. "Consistent" means reduced thick enough to sit in the kidney's hollow without running. Truffle peelings or a little truffle paste stirred into good demi-glace is the practical substitute.
ServingThis is a single-plate dish assembled at the last moment: tomato sauce down, egg rounds on top, kidney halves cut side up on either side. It will not hold, so plate and send immediately.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of the Delmonico's kitchen in New York, and it carries a long run of variations on oeufs au miroir -- eggs cooked in a shallow dish until the surface is smooth as a mirror -- each distinguished largely by its garnish and named in the nineteenth-century French manner after a person, place or opera. The Meyerbeer garnish, grilled kidney with truffled Perigueux sauce, is generally traced to the composer Giacomo Meyerbeer, whose Paris operas made him one of the most celebrated men in Europe in the 1830s and 40s; the same pairing appears in Escoffier as oeufs Meyerbeer. That a restaurant would keep a named egg-and-kidney composition on hand says something about how breakfast and supper were served to the wealthy in that period: kidneys were a cheap cut, and the luxury lay in the truffle sauce and the labor of trimming two eggs into neat circles.