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Eggs, Lipton
Boil six peeled, medium potatoes in two quarts water with a teaspoon salt for thirty minutes, thoroughly drain on a sieve and press through a potato masher into a small saucepan. Add an ounce of butter, a whole egg, half teaspoon salt, three saltspoons pepper, a saltspoon grated nutmeg, a tablespoon finely chopped truffles, and briskly stir on fire for two minutes. Slide a dentilated fancy tube in at bottom of a pastry bag, drop in potato preparation and press down puree evenly on a lightly buttered tin to twelve bird-nest shapes. Carefully crack a fresh egg in each potato, sprinkle a little grated Parmesan cheese over eggs, evenly season with a half teaspoon salt, three saltspoons pepper, set in oven for eight minutes, remove, carefully dress them on hot dish with a folded napkin and serve.
This is duchesse potato piped into nests and baked with an egg in each — a hot hors d'oeuvre or luncheon dish. The whole thing hinges on piping the potato while it is still hot enough to hold a sharp edge.
- SaltspoonsA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon, so three saltspoons is 3/4 teaspoon and the nutmeg is a scant 1/4 teaspoon. The pepper quantity is generous by modern taste; halve it if you like.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given. Bake at 400F, hot enough to colour the piped ridges and the Parmesan before the yolks set hard.
- Potatoes and texture"Press through a potato masher" means a ricer or a drum sieve, not a mashing tool. Use a floury potato (russet, Maris Piper) and rice it while steaming hot — cooled or gluey potato will not hold a piped shape.
- Work fast with the bagThe two minutes of brisk stirring over the fire drives off moisture and cooks the egg slightly, which is what makes the mixture pipeable. Fill the bag and pipe immediately; the puree stiffens as it cools.
- Dentilated tubeA large star tip. Pipe a flat coil about 3 inches across, then two or three rings on top to build a wall deep enough to contain a whole egg.
- Eight minutes is shortAt 400F, eight minutes usually leaves the whites slack. Bake 12 to 15 minutes, until the whites are fully opaque and set at the edge of the yolk; the nests can take the extra time without burning.
- TrufflesA tablespoon of chopped truffle is a luxury seasoning here, not structural. Finely chopped sauteed mushroom with a few drops of truffle oil, or simply omitting it, changes nothing mechanical.
- Yield and serviceTwelve nests, each taking a whole egg; two apiece if served as a first course. The folded napkin on the platter is period presentation; a warmed plate does much the same job.
The International Cook Book belongs to the era when hotel and restaurant kitchens named dishes after distinguished guests, and this one is usually assumed, though without documentation, to honour Sir Thomas Lipton, the tea magnate and America's Cup challenger. The technique underneath the name is older and entirely French: pommes duchesse, riced potato enriched with butter and egg and piped into shapes, belongs to the nineteenth-century professional repertoire. Piping it into nests to hold an egg — oeufs en nid — turns up on grand-hotel luncheon cards, cheap in materials, expensive in labour, and made expensive-sounding by a spoonful of truffle.