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Eggs En Coquilles
Cut eight hard-boiled eggs in eight pieces each and keep on a plate. Heat one and a half tablespoons melted butter in a frying pan, add one finely minced onion, and gently brown over a brisk fire five minutes, stirring lightly meanwhile. Add one tablespoon flour. Stir well while heating a minute, then moisten with one and a half gills of milk and a half gill of cream, and continually mix until it comes to a boil. Add the eggs. Season with half a teaspoon salt, a saltspoon cayenne pepper and half a saltspoon grated nutmeg. Carefully mix, cook for two minutes. Divide it into six table shells, sprinkle a little grated Parmesan cheese over, then set in the oven eight minutes. Remove and serve.
A creamy gratin of hard-boiled eggs in shells, essentially a béchamel-and-onion base finished under high heat. The measurements are in gills and saltspoons, so convert before you start.
- Gills and saltspoonsA gill is half a cup: one and a half gills of milk is 3/4 cup, half a gill of cream is 1/4 cup. A saltspoon is 1/4 teaspoon, so the cayenne is 1/4 teaspoon and the nutmeg 1/8.
- Table shellsThese are coquilles: natural or ceramic scallop shells used as individual gratin dishes. Small ramekins or shallow gratin dishes of about 1/2 cup capacity will serve.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given; the recipe says only to set the shells in the oven for eight minutes. That short time implies a hot oven, hot enough to colour the Parmesan without drying the sauce.
- The sauce is thin on purposeOne tablespoon of flour to a cup of liquid is a light béchamel. It thickens further in the oven and the eggs shed no moisture, so resist adding more flour or the filling sets stiff.
- Brown the onion gently"Brisk fire" and "gently brown" pull in opposite directions. Aim for soft and pale gold over medium heat; scorched onion in this quantity of sauce will dominate everything.
- Handle the eggs lastEight eggs cut in eight pieces each gives rough wedges that break down easily. Fold them in off the heat if possible, and keep the final two minutes of cooking to a bare simmer.
- YieldSix shells, generously filled — a first course or a light supper dish rather than a main. Eight eggs across six portions is substantial.
En coquille means simply "in the shell" — in this case the scallop shell, which is often said to have served French kitchens as a single-serving gratin dish for anything bound in a cream sauce and browned with cheese or crumbs. The technique was a standard way to make a small quantity of leftover fish, poultry or, as here, hard-boiled eggs into something worth serving at table. The recipe's structure is textbook French service reduced to household scale: a béchamel built on browned onion, sharpened with cayenne and nutmeg, gratinéed with Parmesan.