No. 2947

Scrambled Eggs with Perigord Truffles

Œufs Brouilles aux Truffes du Perigord

Cut two ounces of Perigord truffles into three-sixteenths inch squares, after they have been peeled and cooked with salt and Madeira wine; put this salpicon with a little melted meat-glaze (No. 402) into a small saucepan and set it in a bain-marie. Break four eggs in a bowl, season and beat to mix well, then pour them through a fine strainer into a saucepan, having its bottom covered with half an ounce of butter; put the saucepan on a slow fire and thicken the eggs while beating steadily with a small tinned wire whip. When almost done remove from the fire and mix in slowly about half an ounce of butter broken up small, finishing with a few spoonfuls of raw cream; add the truffles and dress in a vegetable or any other deep dish.

← No. 2946 Scrambled Eggs with Tomatoes and Chives Eggs & Omelets No. 2948 Scrambled Eggs with Piedmont Truffles →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's scrambled eggs are French-style: a custard stirred over gentle heat until it barely thickens, not the dry curds of a diner griddle. Everything else here is a matter of translating one luxury ingredient and one stock reduction.

The hinge: heat and timingKeep the pan on the lowest possible flame and whisk without stopping; four eggs may take something like eight to ten minutes to come together as a loose, spoonable cream, depending on the pan and the heat. Pull the pan off while the eggs still look underdone, since residual heat keeps setting them, and the butter broken up small and the cream stirred in at the end will also help slow the cooking.
Perigord trufflesTuber melanosporum, the winter black truffle. Two ounces of fresh truffle is a serious expense; jarred whole black truffles preserved in their own juice are the practical stand-in and are already cooked, so skip the Madeira step and simply warm them. Do not substitute truffle oil, which is usually flavoured with a synthetic aroma compound and will flatten the dish.
"Salpicon"Simply the diced garnish. Three-sixteenths of an inch is a scant 5 mm dice, small enough to distribute through the eggs rather than sit in lumps.
Meat-glaze (No. 402)Glace de viande: brown stock reduced until it is syrupy and sets firm when cold. A teaspoon of good reduced veal or beef stock, or a scant half-teaspoon of commercial demi-glace concentrate, does the same job of giving the truffles savoury depth.
Bain-marieA bowl or small pan set in barely simmering water, used here only to hold the truffles warm while the eggs cook. Not a step to skip: cold truffles dropped into finished eggs will chill them.
Straining the eggsPouring the beaten eggs through a fine sieve breaks up the chalazae and any unmixed white, which is what gives this style its uniform texture. Worth doing.
"Raw cream"Means uncooked cream, not unpasteurised. Use ordinary heavy cream, a tablespoon or two, off the heat.
EquipmentA tinned wire whip was a whisk with tinned iron wires, used because it would not react with eggs. Any stainless whisk works; in a nonstick pan use a silicone spatula and stir rather than whip.
YieldFour eggs serves two as a first course, or one as the centre of a light supper. Ranhofer directs dressing the eggs in a vegetable or other deep dish; serve them at once, since the eggs will continue to tighten and weep if held.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of his three decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and this recipe sits in a run of scrambled-egg variations that shows how the kitchen worked: a single base preparation, then a numbered fan of garnishes, with cross-references to the stocks and glazes made elsewhere in the house. The distinction between No. 2947 and the Piedmont truffle version that follows it matters more than a modern menu would suggest, since black Perigord truffles were generally cooked, often in Madeira, while the white truffles of Piedmont were often shaved raw over the finished dish he a rule, and Piedmont truffles were cooked as well. Both were imported, expensive, and by the 1890s a standard marker of luxury on American restaurant menus; preserved truffles in tins and jars, a French export trade that grew through the second half of the nineteenth century, are what made a dish like this possible at all in New York. Ranhofer's method for the eggs themselves, low heat and butter beaten in at the end, is the classic French treatment and has changed very little since.