No. 2868

Fried Eggs, Neapolitan Style, Turned Over

Œufs Frits des deux Cotes a la Napolitaine

Heat either oil, lard or butter in a small, deep pan; incline it slightly, and break an egg in the liquid; cook and bring it over with a perforated spoon to have it attain a long, well-rounded shape; as soon as done drain, and cook another one the same way, until sufficient are ready, and when all are well drained lay each one on a separate crouton (No. 51). Dress in a circle, and fill the center with Neapolitan macaroni (No. 2960); pour over the eggs some tomato sauce (No. 549) reduced with espagnole sauce (No. 414) and good gravy (No. 404).

← No. 2867 Fried Eggs a la Montebello Eggs & Omelets No. 2869 Fried Eggs Turned Over—a la Sole →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's fried eggs are deep-fried, not pan-fried: the egg is basted and rolled in hot fat until it forms a compact oval. The recipe is written as a set of cross-references, so most of the work is assembling components the book describes elsewhere.

The hinge: fat depth and temperatureThe egg needs enough fat to be enveloped rather than to sit flat, in a small deep pan that can be tilted so the fat pools. The book gives no temperature; work hot enough that the white sets on contact but not so hot that it blisters brown before the yolk sets. Clarified fat or oil is easier to hold at that heat than the butter the recipe also permits.
Use the freshest eggs you can getThe "long, well-rounded shape" depends on a tight, viscous white that wraps the yolk. Older eggs have watery whites that feather out into lace no matter how you roll them. Break each egg into a cup first and slide it in against the tilted side of the pan.
Rolling the eggTilting the pan pools the fat so the egg forms against the curve. Use a perforated spoon to fold the white over the yolk and keep turning it; about a minute gives a set white and a still-soft yolk. Cook them one at a time, as written — two eggs in a small pan will fuse.
Croutons, No. 51The book's crouton entry is referenced, not reproduced here; in The Epicurean these are shaped pieces of bread fried in butter, not the small dice sold as croutons today. Cut them slightly larger than the egg so nothing overhangs.
Neapolitan macaroni, No. 2960Ranhofer's version is a buttered, cheesed macaroni with tomato rather than a baked casserole. Any short tubular pasta finished with butter, Parmesan and a spoonful of the tomato sauce stands in.
The sauce, in plain termsTomato sauce (549) slackened and enriched with espagnole (414) and meat gravy (404) amounts to a tomato sauce mounted with a dark brown veal-and-beef reduction. A good demi-glace whisked into a smooth tomato sauce, roughly one part to two, gives the same effect. It should coat, not flood.
Timing the assemblyFried eggs go slack and greasy within minutes. Have the croutons fried, the macaroni hot and the sauce at the ready before the first egg goes into the fat, and dress the dish the moment the last egg drains.
YieldThe original gives no count. Figure one egg and one crouton per person as a first course, two for a lunch dish; a pound of macaroni fills the center of a platter for eight.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York for the better part of three decades, and The Epicurean (1894) is the enormous house book he left behind — over three thousand numbered recipes, each cross-referenced to the others like an engineering manual. That numbering is why this entry reads as it does: the egg is the only thing actually taught here, and the croutons, macaroni and three-part sauce are all borrowed by reference from elsewhere in the volume. "A la Napolitaine" in nineteenth-century French kitchen usage signalled macaroni and tomato, the two things Naples stood for on a Parisian or New York menu, and it was applied to everything from beef to timbales. The deep-fried egg itself — œuf frit proper, as against the American fried egg cooked flat in a skillet — was a standard restaurant preparation of the period, valued precisely because rolling it in hot fat produced a neat solid oval that could be perched on a crouton and sauced without collapsing.