No. 2939

Scrambled Eggs with Fine Herbs

Œufs Brouilles aux Fines Herbes

Have some eggs scrambled the same as with gravy (No. 2940); to avoid having lumps in them they should not be cooked excessively, and above all be well stirred; mix in one tablespoonful altogether of chopped parsley, chives and chervil. Should it be necessary to keep them any length of time before serving, then add a little good veloute sauce (No. 415). Surround with puff paste crescents baked in a slack oven.

← No. 2938 Scrambled Eggs in a Risot Border with Ducks'Eggs & Omelets No. 2940 Scrambled Eggs with Gravy →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes in shorthand for a professional brigade, so the actual method sits in the cross-referenced entry. The hinge is heat: these are eggs cooked slowly and stirred constantly, pulled while still loose.

The cross-referencesNo. 2940 is plain scrambled eggs finished with meat gravy; No. 415 is velouté, a white stock thickened with blond roux. Neither is strictly required for the dish — eggs, butter and herbs alone will serve, with the gravy and velouté acting as richness and insurance.
Low heat, constant stirring"Should not be cooked excessively" is the whole instruction. Work over low heat or a bain-marie and stir without stopping; the eggs should leave the pan while they still flow, since carryover heat will finish them on the plate.
Fines herbesThe classic quartet is parsley, chives, chervil and tarragon; Ranhofer omits the tarragon here. Chervil is the one that is hard to find — fresh parsley and chives with a pinch of tarragon is the nearest substitute. Chop just before use and fold in off the heat, as heat dulls chervil almost immediately.
One tablespoonful "altogether"That is a tablespoon of the three herbs combined, not of each. The recipe gives no egg quantity, so the proportion is left to the cook; as written it is a restrained seasoning.
Holding the eggsThe velouté is a holding trick: the starch and fat buffer the egg proteins so a batch can sit a few minutes on a hot table without weeping or curdling. A spoonful or two of heavy cream does the same thing in a domestic kitchen. Eggs held this way are still best served within minutes.
A slack ovenA cool oven, generally reckoned somewhere in the 250–300°F range, though puff paste crescents (fleurons) are today more often baked hot, around 400°F, for lift and colour. The slack oven here dries them into crisp, pale garnishes rather than tall pastry; if you want them puffed, bake hot and briefly.
YieldNo quantity is given, as the book assumes a service platter. Reckon two to three eggs a person; the text offers no basis for scaling the herbs, so adjust to taste.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of his years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its structure explains the terseness here: recipes are numbered and chained, so a dish is defined by how it differs from the one before it. Œufs brouillés aux fines herbes is standard French kitchen repertoire rather than a Delmonico invention — fines herbes as a grouping of soft green herbs was familiar in French cooking by the nineteenth century, though the quartet is often said not to have been rigidly codified until later, and eggs are its most natural vehicle. What marks the entry as restaurant writing is the velouté, which helps the eggs hold as they travel from kitchen to dining room. The puff paste crescents, called fleurons, were a stock garnish of the period, turned out by the pastry section in quantity and used to edge platters of eggs, fish and creamed dishes alike.