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Eggs Au Gratin
Boil ten fresh eggs in boiling water for ten minutes, remove and drop them in cold water to cool for ten minutes. Remove the shells and cut each into eight even parts.
Heat one ounce butter in a saucepan, add two tablespoons sifted flour, stir well with a wooden spoon for one minute, then pour in two gills hot milk, briskly stir again for five minutes and as soon as it comes to a boiling point add the eggs. Season with half teaspoon salt, a salt-spoon cayenne pepper and a saltspoon grated nutmeg. Gently stir for half minute. Place the preparation in a baking dish; dredge a tablespoon grated Parmesan cheese over the eggs and set in the oven to bake for eight minutes-seeing that they attain a good colour. Remove and serve.
A hard-boiled egg gratin bound with a plain white sauce. The proportions are the thing to watch: two gills of milk is barely enough liquid for ten eggs, so the mixture is meant to be thick rather than saucy.
- Gills and saltspoonsTwo gills is one cup of milk. A saltspoon is roughly a quarter teaspoon, so cayenne and nutmeg each measure about 1/4 teaspoon — the nutmeg is fine, but a full quarter teaspoon of cayenne is assertive; start with an eighth.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given. Eight minutes for colour on a gratin implies a hot oven, or a few minutes under the broiler. Everything in the dish is already cooked; the oven is only browning the top.
- Ten minutes is long for eggsTen minutes of hard boiling gives a chalky yolk and a green-grey ring at the edge. Eight to nine minutes off the heat in covered water, then straight into cold water, gives the same sliceable firmness with better colour and texture.
- Cutting into eighthsCut each egg lengthwise into quarters, then halve the quarters; the yolks will crumble somewhat, and the crumbs help thicken the sauce.
- The rouxOne ounce of butter is two tablespoons, correctly matched to the two tablespoons of flour. Cook it the full minute without letting it colour, and add the milk hot to avoid lumps.
- Fold, do not stirHalf a minute of "gentle" stirring after the eggs go in is generous. Fold with a spatula just until coated, or the whites break down into shreds.
- CheeseA single tablespoon of Parmesan over ten eggs gives colour more than flavour. Two to three tablespoons, or Parmesan mixed with dry breadcrumbs, browns more evenly.
- YieldTen eggs serves five or six as a lunch or supper dish with bread or toast; the recipe halves without difficulty.
Eggs au gratin belongs to the large family of thrift dishes built on hard-boiled eggs and b umber of European and American cookery -- the same idea underlies English egg-and-cream savouries and the sauce-bound dishes that later became creamed eggs on toast. "Au gratin" refers to the browned crust, and is generally traced to the French gratter, to scrape, originally the crusty part scraped from the dish rather than a style of cooking. By 1900 a flour-and-butter white sauce was standard equipment in any competent kitchen, and Parmesan kept and travelled well enough to be found in pantries far from Italy.