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Devilled Poached Eggs
Have three quarts boiling water in saucepan with two tablespoons vinegar and tablespoon salt, then carefully crack in six fresh eggs, poach for four minutes, remove with a skimmer and carefully drop in cold water. Proceed the same with six more, take them up from the water, lay on a cloth and neatly trim. Spread a very little French mustard around, dip in beaten egg, then lightly roll them in fresh bread crumbs, place in a frying basket and fry in boiling fat for one minute, lift up, sprinkle a little salt over, dress on a hot dish with folded napkin and serve.
A two-stage egg dish: poach, chill, crumb, then flash-fry. The whole thing hinges on the eggs being cold and dry before they go into the crumbs, so plan for the poaching to happen well ahead.
- Poach ahead and chill hardThe cold-water bath is not just to stop the cooking — it firms the whites so they can be trimmed and handled. Give them at least 10 minutes in ice water, and pat them genuinely dry or the egg wash will slide off.
- Four minutes is deliberateFour minutes here gives a set white with a yolk still soft to just-jammy, which suits a dish where the fryer adds only a minute. Many modern poaching instructions run nearer three minutes; the extra time leaves an egg sturdy enough to breadcrumb without bursting.
- The vinegar and saltTwo tablespoons of vinegar in three quarts is a light hand and will not flavour the eggs; it helps the whites coagulate. Keep the water at a bare shiver rather than a rolling boil, whatever the wording says, or the whites will shred.
- French mustardIn cookery of this period the term usually means a smooth, mild prepared mustard rather than a coarse grainy one. "A very little" is right — perhaps a quarter teaspoon smeared over each egg. Apart from the salt, the mustard is the only thing making the dish "devilled."
- Boiling fatDeep-frying heat; the book gives no figure, but roughly 365–375F is the usual range. Cooler and the crumbs soak; hotter and they colour very quickly. One minute is enough — you are browning a crust, not cooking an egg.
- Crumbs"Fresh bread crumbs" most likely means soft crumbs from a day-old loaf rather than dried ones. A double dip in egg and crumbs makes a sturdier shell if the first coat looks thin.
- The folded napkinA period plating convention: the linen absorbs frying fat and keeps the eggs from sliding. A rack and then a warm platter does the same job.
- YieldTwelve eggs, so six servings as a luncheon or supper dish, or twelve as part of a larger table. Serve at once — the crust softens within a few minutes.
"Devilled" entered English cookery in the late eighteenth century to describe anything sharpened with mustard, cayenne or both, usually before being grilled or fried; the word attached itself to kidneys, bones, crab and eventually eggs. This version reads as restaurant rather than home cookery: poaching, trimming to a neat oval, crumbing and deep-frying is a great deal of labour for an egg, and it suits a kitchen where the eggs can be poached earlier in the day. Fried poached eggs of this kind — oeufs pochés frits — appear in professional French-influenced repertoires of the period as a luncheon entrée or a garnish, and the folded napkin service is the same convention that carried fried whitebait and croquettes to the table.