No. 2948

Scrambled Eggs with Piedmont Truffles

Œufs Brouilles aux Truffes du Piemont

Prepare the scrambled eggs the same as for No. 2940, only salting them less; mix with them two spoonfuls of grated parmesan. Have two ounces of white truffles cut up into thin fillets; put the eggs in a souffle pan, make a hole in the center and in it place the truffles; pour some barely melted butter over, and on top place anchovy fillets. Cover the whole with the eggs so that the truffles are inclosed in the center; set this pan in a slack oven for a few moments and serve at once.

← No. 2947 Scrambled Eggs with Perigord Truffles Eggs & Omelets No. 2949 Soft Eggs a la Chipolata →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer builds this on his base scrambled eggs (No. 2940): eggs beaten with butter, stirred over gentle heat until barely set. Everything here depends on treating the white truffle as a garnish that is warmed, not cooked.

The hinge: barely warm the trufflesThe hinge: barely warm the truffles — white Alba truffles (Tuber magnatum) lose much of their aroma under real heat. The "few moments" in the oven is meant only to take the chill off them under a blanket of egg; a minute or two at low heat is the whole intent, and shaving them over the finished eggs is a reasonable alternative.
"Slack oven"The coolest working oven in a coal range, roughly 250-300F. In a modern oven set 275F, or simply hold the covered pan over a pilot-warm burner off the heat.
Soufflé panIn Ranhofer's usage a straight-sided ovenproof dish, not a mold for a risen soufflé. Any shallow gratin dish or small oven-safe skillet serves; the eggs go in as a bed, the truffles in a well in the middle, then more egg over the top.
SpoonfulsSpoonfuls — "spoonful" in a book of this period most often means a tablespoon, so two of grated Parmesan is probably around 2 tablespoons — enough to season, not to make the eggs stringy.
SaltThe instruction to salt less matters: Parmesan and anchovy fillets between them carry the dish. Salt the raw egg lightly or not at all and taste at the end.
Two ounces of white truffleThat is a substantial quantity at current prices, and fresh Alba truffle is available roughly October to December. Preserved white truffle in jars and truffle oil are not the same ingredient; if fresh is out of reach, the recipe is better made with a good black winter truffle, which tolerates the warmth better.
Egg textureRanhofer's scrambled eggs are the French style — low heat, constant stirring, finished soft and creamy while still glossy. Firm American-style curds will not hold the truffles in the way the assembly assumes.
YieldNo number is given. Two ounces of truffle and a Parmesan-seasoned egg base suit four to six eggs, serving two or three as a first course.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer spent three decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York and published The Epicurean in 1894 as a complete record of that kitchen; the eggs-and-omelets chapter alone runs to dozens of numbered variations, each cross-referencing a base preparation, in the manner of the French professional manuals he trained under. The pairing of this recipe with No. 2947, scrambled eggs with Périgord truffles, is deliberate: the two great European truffles were understood as distinct ingredients with distinct handling. Périgord's black truffle is cooked, often for some time, and gives up its perfume to fat and heat; the white truffle of Piedmont, gathered around Alba and traditionally hunted in autumn, is aromatic raw and fades under heat, and Ranhofer buries it in the middle of the eggs and gives it only a slack oven for a moment. That white truffles were on hand in Manhattan at all says something about the supply lines a restaurant of Delmonico's standing commanded in the 1890s.