No. 2867

Fried Eggs a la Montebello

Œufs Frits a la Montebello

Poach some eggs; when cold pare and wipe on a cloth; season and roll simply in flour then plunge them into hot frying fat, and as soon as dry and nicely colored remove with a skimmer, drain on a cloth and lay each one on a plain crouton of bread sauted in clarified butter. Dress the eggs on a dish and cover over with Montebello sauce (No. 502).

← No. 2866 Fried Eggs a la Eugene Andre Eggs & Omelets No. 2868 Fried Eggs, Neapolitan Style, Turned Over →

For the Modern Kitchen

A poached egg, chilled until firm enough to handle, floured and briefly deep-fried, then set on a fried bread round under a sauce. The hinge is the chilling: a warm poached egg will not survive flouring or the fat.

Poach with the frying in mindRanhofer says only to poach the eggs and use them "when cold." In practice that means poaching until the white is fully set, then cooling the eggs thoroughly (an ice bath is the quick way) so they are firm enough to trim and handle without splitting.
Pare and wipeTrim off the ragged skirts of white with a small knife so the egg is a neat oval, then blot dry on a towel. Surface moisture turns flour to paste and makes the coating slide off in the fat.
Fat temperatureThe recipe says only "hot frying fat." In modern terms that suggests something in the usual deep-frying range, hot enough to colour the surface quickly rather than let the egg sit and soak; a very short immersion is all that is wanted, since the egg is already cooked.
Flour onlyRanhofer coats "simply in flour," with the seasoning applied to the egg before flouring, so expect a thin, light coating rather than a crisp crust; handle the eggs with a skimmer or spider rather than tongs.
The croutonsThe recipe calls for a plain crouton of bread sauted in clarified butter for each egg, cut large enough to seat the egg. Clarified butter is the usual choice for such frying because it takes more heat than whole butter before the milk solids scorch.
Montebello sauce (No. 502)The sauce is a separate numbered entry in the book and is not reproduced here, so the dish cannot be finished from this page alone; the composition of No. 502 has to be looked up in the sauce chapter.
Yield and timingThe recipe gives no yield; one egg per serving as a first course is the obvious reading. The eggs can be poached and cooled ahead, but the frying and saucing are best done at the last moment, since a floured coating will soften under sauce.

A Little History

The name points to Montebello in Lombardy, site of Napoleonic fighting in 1800; Jean Lannes was created Duc de Montebello for his part in it, and nineteenth-century French kitchens attached the title to dishes as they did with Marengo and Wagram. Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York and author of The Epicurean (1894), inherited that whole naming system along with the classical repertoire, and his egg chapter runs to hundreds of numbered variations differentiated largely by garnish and sauce. The technique itself is older than the name: frying an already-poached egg gives a soft egg a crust and a firm base, and the idea persists in the modern breaded soft-boiled egg. The cross-references at the head and foot of the entry are how the book was meant to be used, as a numbered system rather than a set of self-contained recipes.