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Eggs, Polonaise
Lightly butter six shirred-egg dishes with a little anchovy butter, then crack two fresh eggs in each dish. Evenly season with a half teaspoon salt, three saltspoons pepper and set them in oven for three minutes, then remove. Place an ounce butter in a frying pan with two tablespoons bread crumbs and toss on fire until a nice light brown, equally divide crumbs over eggs and serve.
A shirred-egg dish that stands or falls on two things: the anchovy butter under the eggs and the browned crumbs over them. Everything else is timing.
- SaltspoonsA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon, so three saltspoons is about 3/4 teaspoon of pepper across twelve eggs. That is a lot of pepper by modern taste; a half teaspoon is nearer the mark, and the anchovy butter already carries salt, so cut the half teaspoon of salt back accordingly.
- Shirred-egg dishesSmall shallow ovenproof dishes, typically 4-5 inches across, one per person. Individual gratin dishes, ramekins wide enough to hold two eggs side by side, or a small cast-iron pan all work.
- Oven heatFilippini gives no temperature. Shirred eggs are usually baked in a fairly hot oven; at around 400-425F three minutes will barely set the whites, and you should expect rather longer for set whites and liquid yolks. Pull them a shade early, since the dishes keep cooking off the heat.
- Anchovy butterNot a shop item in most places now. Mash 3-4 oil-packed anchovy fillets to a paste and beat into 4 tablespoons of softened butter; a squeeze of lemon helps. Use it thinly, since the crumbs and eggs pick up the salt readily.
- The crumbsDry crumbs, not fresh, and they brown fast in an ounce of butter over moderate heat. Keep them moving and take them off while they are light brown, because butter-fried crumbs go from golden to bitter in under a minute. Make them while the eggs bake and scatter them at the last moment so they stay crisp.
- YieldSix servings of two eggs each. Toast and something sharp, watercress or a lemony salad, balances the butter.
À la polonaise, Polish style, in French kitchen usage means a finish of butter-browned breadcrumbs, usually with chopped hard-boiled egg and parsley, and it is most familiar on asparagus and cauliflower. Here the convention is turned inside out: the egg is the dish and the crumbs are the garnish. Alexander Filippini, long of Delmonico's in New York, compiled The International Cook Book (1906), and its "Polonaise" entries reflect the restaurant French of the period rather than any Polish home cooking; the name marked a style in the professional repertoire, not a provenance. Shirred eggs were a standard hotel breakfast item then, baked in small individual dishes, and the anchovy butter beneath adds salt and savour without adding a sauce.