No. 2945

Scrambled Eggs with Tomato Puree

Œufs Brouilles a la Puree de Tomates

Select two or three good tomatoes; put them beside each other in a wire basket and plunge into boiling water for two minutes simply to scald and remove the skins; drain off and press through a sieve: should the puree be too thin put it on a hair sieve to drain, then warm and season it. Scramble seven or eight eggs in a saucepan the same as for scrambled with gravy (No. 2940); when properly thickened remove and mix in the prepared puree; pour the whole into a deep dish. Sprinkle over with half-glaze (No. 400), using a brush, and surround with bread croutons (No. 51).

← No. 2944 Scrambled Eggs with Swiss and Parmesan Chees Eggs & Omelets No. 2946 Scrambled Eggs with Tomatoes and Chives →

For the Modern Kitchen

A Delmonico's-era plate that depends on two things Ranhofer takes for granted: tomato pulp thick enough not to slacken the eggs, and eggs pulled from the heat while still loose. Everything else is assembly.

The hinge: dry the pureeFresh tomato pulp is mostly water, and water added to finished scrambled eggs will break them into a weeping mess. Drain the sieved pulp until it mounds on a spoon, or reduce it in a wide pan until it no longer runs, then season and warm it before it meets the eggs.
Peeling the tomatoesTwo minutes in boiling water is longer than needed for ripe fruit; score an X in the skin and give them 20-40 seconds, then into cold water. In winter, drained canned tomatoes sieved and reduced are closer to the intent than a hard supermarket tomato.
"A hair sieve"A fine sieve of woven horsehair, used for straining and for pressing pulp. A fine-mesh stainless strainer or a chinois does the same work; a food mill fitted with the fine plate is faster for several tomatoes.
Scrambling as No. 2940 intendsNo. 2940 is not given here, but French-style scrambled eggs of this period were generally cooked slowly with butter over gentle heat, or in a pan set in simmering water, and stirred constantly to a thick cream. Take them off while visibly underdone, since the residual heat plus the warm puree will finish them.
Half-glaze (No. 400)Ranhofer's demi-glace: brown stock reduced with espagnole until it coats. A commercial demi-glace concentrate or a hard-reduced brown veal or beef stock, brushed on in a thin gloss, is the practical substitute. Use very little; it is decoration and seasoning, not sauce.
Croutons (No. 51)The cross-referenced recipe is not given here; croutons of this kind are typically trimmed slices or triangles of bread fried in butter until golden, arranged around the rim. Fry them just before serving so they stay crisp against the moist eggs.
SeasoningNo salt or pepper is specified anywhere in the instruction. Season the puree assertively and the eggs lightly; the demi-glace brings its own salt.
YieldSeven or eight eggs with two or three tomatoes serves three to four as a first or luncheon course, or two generously with the croutons as the bulk of the plate.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894) set down the repertoire he cooked for thirty-odd years at Delmonico's in New York, and the eggs chapter is a good illustration of how that kitchen worked: one base preparation, oeufs brouilles, cross-referenced and then varied dozens of ways with cheese, chives, truffles, kidneys, asparagus points, or as here a tomato puree. The numbering system is the point of the book as much as the recipes are, since a cook was expected to hold the base method in hand and reach for No. 400 or No. 51 as components already standing in the kitchen. Tomatoes appear freely throughout, which by the 1890s was unremarkable in American cooking, though the fussiness about draining the pulp on a hair sieve is a reminder that these were seasonal field tomatoes, juicier and more variable than what a cook works with now. The brushed film of half-glaze over eggs is pure restaurant thinking: a dark gloss for the dining room, applied at the last moment.