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Eggs, Britain
Lightly butter six shirred-egg dishes. Crack two fresh eggs into each dish. Evenly season with half teaspoon salt and two saltspoons white pepper. Cut twelve anchovies in small pieces, place in a small saucepan with one gill demi-glace and two tablespoons sherry and boil five minutes. Arrange a thin slice truffle on top of each egg yolk, evenly pour sauce over the eggs, then set in oven five minutes. Remove and serve.
A baked-egg dish that stands or falls on how long it stays in the oven. The sauce can be built well ahead; the eggs cannot.
- Gill and saltspoonIn American measure a gill is 4 fl oz (half a cup), so the sauce is about 1/2 cup demi-glace plus 2 tablespoons sherry; note that an imperial gill is 5 fl oz. A saltspoon is usually reckoned at a quarter teaspoon, making the pepper about half a teaspoon in total across six dishes.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given in the recipe. A hot oven, around 400F, is a reasonable modern reading; judge by the eggs rather than by the setting, since five minutes will only leave the yolks loose if the oven is genuinely hot and the dishes shallow.
- The dishes"Shirred-egg dishes" are small shallow ovenproof plates or gratin dishes, one per serving, roughly 4-5 inches across. Ramekins with high sides steam the eggs rather than baking them.
- Watch the whites, not the clockFive minutes assumes the sauce goes on hot, as the boiling step provides. Pull them when the whites are just opaque and still trembling; carry-over heat in a hot ceramic dish will keep cooking them at the table.
- Demi-glaceA reduced brown veal stock, sold frozen or as concentrate. A well-reduced beef stock thickened lightly will stand in; do not substitute unreduced broth, which will flood the dishes.
- Anchovies and saltTwelve anchovy fillets in half a cup of demi-glace makes an assertive, salty sauce. Taste it before adding the half teaspoon of salt to the eggs, and cut back if the sauce is already sharp.
- TruffleA thin slice of truffle per yolk (the kind is not specified) is decorative here rather than a flavour engine. Truffle is now priced accordingly; a sliver of preserved truffle, or simply omitting it, changes nothing structural.
- YieldSix dishes of two eggs each, so six servings as a first course or light lunch, with toast to take the sauce.
Shirred eggs are the English name for what French kitchens call oeufs sur le plat — eggs cooked and served in the same shallow dish, dressed rather than folded or stirred. The origin of "shirred" is uncertain; it is often linked to the shallow dish itself, but this is not settled. The country heading here rests on the anchovy: anchovy-based sauces were long associated with English seasoning, even where the method and the demi-glace are French.