No. 2925

Poached Eggs a la Boeldieu and Eggs a la Benedick

Œufs Poches a la Boeldieu et Œufs a la Benedick

Poach two or three eggs; scald two tomatoes just sufficiently to be able to peel off the skins; drain and cut them in slices, then in dice; put the pieces in a pan with oil and saute on a brisk fire until they have reduced their humidity without dissolving; season highly, and bestrew with chopped parsley. With these tomatoes fill two or three hollowed-out bread crusts (No. 52), and on each lay one of the poached eggs heated at the oven door, basting them over with good reduced veloute sauce (No. 415); range these crusts on separate plates.

Eggs a la Benedick.—Cut some muffins in halves crosswise, toast them without allowing to brown, then place a round of cooked ham an eighth of an inch thick and of the same diameter as the muffins on each half. Heat in a moderate oven and put a poached egg on each toast. Cover the whole with Hollandaise sauce (No. 501).

← No. 2924 Eggs on a Dish with Tomatoes Eggs & Omelets No. 2926 Poached Eggs a la Bourguignonne—Baked →

For the Modern Kitchen

Two dishes in one entry: a tomato-filled bread croustade under velouté, and the earliest well-known printed formula for eggs Benedict. Both hinge on poaching eggs properly and holding them warm without cooking them further.

ServesThe first dish as written makes two or three portions, one egg per hollowed crust; the Benedick half of the entry gives no quantity. Scale by the egg.
"Hollowed-out bread crusts"Ranhofer's No. 52 is a bread croustade: a thick slice or small roll with the crumb dug out and dried in the oven. A 1/2-inch-thick round of sturdy white bread, buttered and toasted at 375F until firm, does much the same job.
Reducing the tomatoes"Reduced their humidity without dissolving" is the whole trick — the diced tomato should lose its water over high heat and still hold its shape. Peeled fresh tomatoes vary; a firm plum tomato behaves best. Canned diced tomato works if drained hard first.
Velouté (No. 415)A white roux sauce built on veal or chicken stock rather than milk, cooked down until it coats. There is no substitute that tastes the same, but a well-reduced chicken velouté made from good stock is an evening's work at most.
"Heated at the oven door"A coal-range technique for holding poached eggs warm in gentle radiant heat. In a modern kitchen, poach ahead, slip the eggs into cold water, then warm them 30 seconds in hot salted water just before plating. An egg left in a 200F oven keeps firming up.
"Moderate oven"350F. Here it is only warming the ham and muffin, so two or three minutes is enough — long enough to heat through, not to dry the toast.
Toast without browningDeliberate: the muffin should be dried and firm so it does not go soggy under the sauce, but pale so it stays tender against the egg. Brown crust fights the hollandaise.
The ham"Cooked ham an eighth of an inch thick" cut to the diameter of the muffin — a carved slice off a whole ham, not deli shavings. A thick-cut ham steak trimmed with a cutter is the closest supermarket equivalent.
Hollandaise (No. 501)Make it last and hold it barely warm, around 130F; above roughly 160F it will scramble, and if it cools it will set. Plate immediately once it goes on.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer was chef at Delmonico's in New York, and The Epicurean (1894) is his own compendium of the restaurant's repertoire — which is why this entry is generally cited as the first printed recipe for eggs Benedict. The dish's origin is traditional rather than documented: the story most often repeated has a Delmonico's patron named Mrs. LeGrand Benedict asking for something new at lunch, though a rival account credits Lemuel Benedict ordering a hangover cure at the Waldorf. Ranhofer's spelling, "Benedick," hints at how unsettled the name still was. Pairing it with œufs à la Boïeldieu — presumed, as many nineteenth-century dishes were, to take its name from a composer, in this case François-Adrien Boïeldieu — is characteristic of the book: two poached-egg garnishes filed side by side among the hundreds of numbered preparations a large brigade was expected to produce on demand.