No. 2920

Eggs on a Dish, Venetian Style

Œufs sur le Plat a la Venitienne

Cut in dice pieces equal quantities of anchovy fillets, broiled and peeled sweet peppers from which the seeds have been removed and good sound tomatoes, scalded, peeled and the liquid squeezed out. Bestrew the bottom of an egg dish with these ingredients, pour over some oil and heat lightly. Break four eggs into the dish, season the whites, and cook in the oven; when removed lay the dish inside of another and serve.

← No. 2919 Eggs on a Dish, Rossini Eggs & Omelets No. 2921 Eggs on a Dish with Bacon →

For the Modern Kitchen

A shirred-egg dish from Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), where the vegetables do the work and the eggs are barely cooked at all. The whole thing takes longer to prepare than to bake.

The hinge: pull them earlyWhites just set, yolks still liquid. Ranhofer gives no temperature or time at all; as a modern approximation, a shallow gratin dish of four eggs in a 375F oven takes somewhere around 6 to 9 minutes, and the residual heat of the hot dish keeps cooking them after they leave the oven.
"An egg dish"A plat à œufs is a shallow, flat-bottomed metal or earthenware dish that goes on the stove and into the oven and comes to the table. A small cast-iron skillet or an individual gratin dish does the same job.
Season the whites onlyThis is deliberate, not an oversight. Salt sprinkled directly on a raw yolk mottles and pits the surface, so the seasoning goes on the whites and the yolk is left alone.
Heat the base first"Pour over some oil and heat lightly" means the anchovy, pepper and tomato are warmed through in the oiled dish before the eggs go in; Ranhofer does not say over what heat, and the stovetop is the obvious reading.
Sweet peppersBroiling and peeling is still the right approach: char them under a broiler or over a flame, steam them covered, then slip the skins off. Good jarred piquillo or roasted red peppers, drained and diced, are a fair substitute.
Squeeze the tomatoes dryExcess tomato liquid is the main thing that ruins this dish; it thins the oil and steams the eggs. Scald, peel, seed, and press the flesh firmly before dicing.
Anchovy is the saltOil-packed fillets are already strongly salted, so taste the vegetable base before adding more salt to the whites.
"Lay the dish inside of another"Ranhofer does not explain why; the likeliest reading is a service convention, the hot cooking dish set into a second dish so it can be carried and set down at table.
YieldRanhofer gives no serving count; four eggs would suit two as a light course, or one as a substantial one.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York for some three decades, built The Epicurean as a numbered reference work, and the shirred-egg section runs through dozens of near-identical variations distinguished only by what lines the dish — Rossini with truffle and foie gras just before this one, bacon just after. "À la vénitienne" in nineteenth-century French kitchen nomenclature was a loose garnish label rather than a claim of Venetian provenance; here it signals the southern-European trio of anchovy, sweet pepper and tomato, cooked in oil rather than butter. The naming system mattered more than the geography.