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Eggs, Coque
Place twelve fresh eggs in a saucepan with one-third more water than height of eggs. Place on range, let gradually come just to boiling point, which ought to take from fifteen to sixteen minutes, remove immediately, place on a hot dish enclosed in a folded napkin and serve with six egg-stands. PERCH SAUTE, CIBOULETTE (CHIVES) Thoroughly wipe six very fresh, even-sized, fat perch, season with a teaspoon salt and half teaspoon pepper, dip in cold milk and lightly roll in flour. Finely chop a sound onion, place in saucepan with one and a half tablespoons melted butter and fry for two minutes. Arrange the perch in one beside another and fry for five minutes on each side, lift up and place on a hot dish. Remove fat from pan, add a half ounce butter and toss on fire until a light brown colour. Add a teaspoon finely minced chives, squeeze in juice of half a sound lemon, lightly toss, then pour over fish and serve.
Two entries run together here: soft-boiled eggs in the shell and pan-fried perch finished with browned butter. Both are simple, and both hinge on heat control rather than technique.
- Eggs, coque"A la coque" means cooked in the shell and served in egg cups. The twelve eggs and "six egg-stands" tell you the yield: two eggs per person, six servings.
- The water depth"One-third more water than height of eggs" appears to mean covering the eggs by about a third of their height again, perhaps two-thirds of an inch above them. Volume is not critical; full coverage is.
- The gradual heat is the pointStarting in cold water and taking fifteen minutes to reach the boil is a slow coddle, not a boil. The white sets softly and the yolk stays fluid. Modern soft-boiling drops eggs into already-boiling water for 5-6 minutes, which gives a firmer white and a similar yolk; the older method is gentler but harder to time, since you must pull the pan the moment the first bubbles break.
- Serving warmThe folded napkin is not decoration. Eggs in the shell cool fast, and the cloth holds the heat while they reach the table. A warmed dish helps more than the napkin does.
- Perch: what to buySix whole pan-dressed perch, scaled and gutted, heads on or off. Market yellow perch commonly run somewhere around 4-10 oz each; if you can only get fillets, allow two per person and cut the frying time to about two minutes a side.
- Frying timesFive minutes per side suits whole fish of that size over medium heat. Test the thickest part behind the head: the flesh should just come away from the bone, about 145F. Thin fillets given ten minutes total will be dry.
- The butter quantitiesA tablespoon and a half of butter for six fish is sparse by modern habit; add more, or use a mix of butter and neutral oil, so the flour coating browns rather than sticks. The half ounce for the sauce is one tablespoon.
- Browned butter"Toss on fire until a light brown colour" is beurre noisette. It goes from nut-brown to burnt in seconds, so add the chives and lemon juice off the heat and pour immediately.
- ChivesCiboulette is ordinary chives. Add them at the last moment; held in hot butter they lose their colour and turn grassy.
Oeufs à la coque are the plainest thing in classical French cookery: the egg is cooked and served in its own shell, the top struck off at table. The perch dish is a variation on the meunière formula — milk, flour, butter, lemon — with chives standing in for parsley, and it reflects how thoroughly French restaurant technique was applied to American freshwater fish in the hotel and club kitchens of the period. Yellow perch was a common market fish around the Great Lakes and the northeastern rivers, cheap, small-boned and best treated simply, which is what this recipe does. The pairing of the two entries under one heading is unexplained, so a breakfast egg and a fish course sit side by side with no comment.