No. 2864

Hard-Boiled Eggs, New York Style

Œufs Durs a la New Yorkaise

Have six eggs boiled hard, the same as for Aurora (No. 2857); shell and split them lengthwise in two; remove the yolks and pound them in a mortar with an ounce of melted butter, salt, pepper, nutmeg, two raw egg-yolks and a gill of bechamel (No. 409), beating the whole well together; then stir in half as much chicken quenelle forcemeat (No. 89). Fill the halved eggs with this preparation, rounding the tops well; range a layer of this same on the bottom of a dish, lay the stuffed eggs over, pour on some butter and dredge with parmesan cheese; push into a moderate oven to heat and brown to a fine color; pour Colbert sauce (No. 451) around and serve.

← No. 2863 Hard-Boiled Egg Croquettes Eggs & Omelets No. 2865 Hard-Boiled Eggs, Russian Style →

For the Modern Kitchen

A stuffed-egg gratin from Ranhofer's cross-referenced system, where half the work sits in other numbered entries. The filling is essentially a yolk mousse bound with raw yolk and forcemeat, so it sets in the oven rather than merely warming through.

A gill of béchamelA gill is half a cup (4 fl oz). Ranhofer's No. 409 béchamel is a butter-and-flour roux worked with milk, seasoned and strained; a thick, well-seasoned modern béchamel serves the same purpose.
"Half as much" forcemeatThe instruction means half the volume of the pounded yolk mixture, not half a pound. With six eggs' worth of yolks, butter and béchamel you are looking at roughly a cup and a quarter of filling base and something over half a cup of forcemeat.
Chicken quenelle forcemeatNo. 89 is raw chicken breast pounded to a paste with a panada and butter, then worked with egg. A modern chicken mousseline of the same weight of breast meat processed cold with an egg white and a few tablespoons of cream is the direct equivalent, and it is what makes the filling puff and hold rather than slump.
The mortarA food processor does the pounding, but pulse the cooked yolks with the butter and béchamel first and add the raw yolks last, briefly. Overworking warm yolk with butter turns the mixture greasy.
Moderate ovenAround 350F; the book gives no temperatures, and "moderate" is a conventional reading. The dish only needs to heat through and take colour on the cheese, ten to fifteen minutes; a hotter oven browns the top before the forcemeat has set and can break the butter out of the filling.
Colbert sauceNo. 451 is a meat glaze mounted with butter and sharpened with lemon and herbs. It is a warm butter sauce and will split if held over direct heat; make it last and pour it round the dish, not over the browned tops.
Boiling the eggsThe reference to No. 2857 simply means eggs cooked hard and cooled enough to shell cleanly. Ten minutes in simmering water then straight into cold water gives firm yolks without the grey ring, and the halves cut without tearing.
YieldTwelve halves, which Ranhofer would have sent out as a hot entree for six. As a first course today it serves four to six.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty years running the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York, and the "a la New Yorkaise" tag reads as a house label — the same self-conscious naming that gave the city Lobster ewberg steak.