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Eggs, Calcutta
Plunge four ounces raw rice into a pint boiling water and boil for thirty-five minutes, thoroughly drain on a sieve, then place in a large baking dish, adding one and a half gills cream or rich milk, half ounce good butter, half teaspoon curry powder, half teaspoon salt, one saltspoon each cayenne and grated nutmeg; mix well and let come to a boil, then carefully crack in twelve fresh eggs, season evenly with a half teaspoon salt and two saltspoons white pepper, set in the oven for six minutes, remove and serve.
A dish of baked eggs set into curried rice, written in the compressed professional shorthand of a hotel kitchen. Two numbers need attention: the rice is boiled far longer than modern rice wants, and the eggs are given far less time than they need.
- The hinge: oven timeSix minutes will not set twelve egg whites in a dish of rice that has only just come off the boil. Expect 10 to 15 minutes at 375F, until the whites are opaque and firm and the yolks still slack. Judge by the whites, not the clock.
- Oven temperatureNone is given. Use 375F, which sets the whites without drying the rice or curdling the cream.
- Gills and saltspoonsA gill is half a cup, so one and a half gills is 3/4 cup of cream. A saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon.
- Rice quantity and cookingFour ounces of raw long-grain rice is a scant 2/3 cup. Modern long-grain is done in 15 to 18 minutes rather than thirty-five. Since the rice is boiled and then drained, use a generous pot of water rather than the pint specified. Boil, drain, and stop there.
- Choice of dishThe eggs must sit in a single layer, so a wide shallow gratin dish holds twelve better than a deep casserole. Bring the rice and cream to a simmer on the stovetop in a pan, then transfer, or use a flameproof baking dish.
- The curry powderPeriod curry blends varied, and yours may be hotter or finer than what was intended; taste and adjust. Stir it into the melted butter over heat for thirty seconds before the cream goes in; raw curry powder folded into hot rice tastes dusty.
- YieldTwelve eggs serves six as a main course or eight at a breakfast table. Halve everything for a household of three.
Anglo-Indian cookery reached Western hotel kitchens as a set of dish names attached to a spice tin, and "Calcutta" on a menu of this period often meant little more than curry powder, rice and cream. Calcutta was the capital of British India until 1911, and its name became a shorthand for the mild, creamy curry style that European chefs built for European palates hardly the food of Bengal, where eggs are more often poached in a mustard-oil gravy than baked over rice. The technique here is the classic French one for oeufs sur le plat: eggs cracked onto a hot, seasoned base and set in the oven rather than a pan. Its appearance tells you how such collections worked a French method, an Indian seasoning, and a place name doing the work of authenticity.