No. 2861

Hard-Boiled Eggs a la Gibson

Œufs Durs a la Gibson

Mince some drained, blanched celery-roots; fry them colorless in butter, then cook in broth (No. 194a) with a little sugar; reduce the liquid to a glaze, and some bechamel (No. 409) and thicken with eight hard egg-yolks pounded with as much butter and then rubbed through a sieve; add also the whites of these eight eggs minced up finely and mix them together with the sauce. Butter and bread-crumb eight small silver shells (Fig. 438); fill them with the prepared eggs, strew bread-crumbs and parmesan over, baste with butter and bake in a hot oven.

← No. 2860 Hard-Boiled Eggs with Noodles a la Carolli Eggs & Omelets No. 2862 Hard-Boiled Eggs a la Washburn →

For the Modern Kitchen

A gratin of chopped hard-boiled egg and celeriac in béchamel, baked in individual shells. Ranhofer writes in shorthand and cross-references other numbers in the book, so a few gaps need filling.

Celery-roots means celeriacPeel and mince the roots finely, blanch until barely tender, then drain well. "Fry colorless" means sweat in butter over low heat with no browning at all — colour would spoil the pale look of the finished dish.
The broth and the béchamelNo. 194a is one of Ranhofer's broths; a light unsalted chicken stock stands in. No. 409 is his béchamel — milk thickened with a white butter-and-flour roux, seasoned lightly. Add enough sauce to bind eight eggs' worth of filling.
The line that garbled in printingAs set here the sentence reads "reduce the liquid to a glaze, and some bechamel" — the sense is: reduce the cooking liquid around the celeriac to a glaze, then add the béchamel.
The yolk-and-butter panade is the hingeThe yolk-and-butter paste is the hinge -- Pounding eight cooked yolks with an equal weight of butter and forcing that through a sieve is what binds and enriches the sauce. Work it in off the heat and do not let the mixture boil afterwards, or the butter breaks and the filling turns grainy.
Hard-boiling for this purposeAim for firm but not chalky yolks — about 10 minutes from a simmer, then straight into cold water. Overcooked yolks develop the sulphurous grey ring and will not sieve smoothly.
Silver shellsFig. 438 shows the small silver shell Ranhofer means, one per person. Ceramic or metal coquille dishes, gratin dishes, or real scallop shells all work; butter and crumb them as directed so the filling lifts cleanly.
Hot ovenRead that as 425-450F. The filling is already cooked, so the bake is only to set the surface and colour the crumbs and parmesan — 10 to 15 minutes, or finish under the broiler.
YieldEight shells, served as a first course or luncheon dish. It is rich; small portions are the point.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of his years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and it is stuffed with dishes named for the restaurant's patrons, public figures and regular parties — Washburn appears in the very next entry. Which Gibson is meant is not recorded in the book, and such names were often attached with little ceremony, so the attribution is best treated as house tradition rather than documented fact. The dish itself is a thoroughly nineteenth-century solution to the problem of hard-boiled eggs: sieve the yolks with butter to make a rich binding paste, fold the chopped whites back in, and bake the whole thing in individual shells under crumbs and cheese. Celeriac, then often called celery-root or turnip-rooted celery, gives the filling a sweetness that plain béchamel would lack.