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Eggs with Clams in Cream
Have half a pint of boiling water in a small saucepan, plunge in eighteen freshly opened little neck clams and boil for three minutes. Drain on a sieve, then cut them in small square pieces. Place them in a small saucepan with one and a half gills cream. Season with two light saltspoons salt, a light saltspoon cayenne pepper and half a saltspoon grated nutmeg, add two teaspoons butter, gently mix, then let boil for five minutes. Divide the preparation evenly into six cocotteegg dishes. Then crack two fresh eggs into each dish, season the eggs evenly with half a light teaspoon salt and two saltspoons white pepper, lay them on a tin, set in the oven for five minutes. Remove, and serve.
A French oeufs en cocotte given an American filling. The measurements are all in pre-1920 kitchen units, and the clam timings are the part worth rethinking.
- The unitsA gill is half a cup, so one and a half gills of cream is 3/4 cup; half a pint of water is one cup. A saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon, which makes the seasoning for the cream about 1/2 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp cayenne and 1/8 tsp nutmeg.
- Don't boil the clams twiceDon't cook the clams twice -- Three minutes in water followed by five minutes in cream will turn littlenecks to erasers. The clams here are already shucked, so a brief blanch of a minute or less is plenty; add the chopped meat to the cream only at the end, once it has reduced and thickened.
- Save the clam liquorThe recipe drains it away. Strain it through a cloth to catch grit and reduce a few spoonfuls into the cream instead; it carries most of the flavor and lets you cut back on the added salt, since clams are already saline.
- Oven temperatureNone is given. A moderate to fairly hot oven, around 375-400F, is a reasonable modern reading, though the book specifies nothing. Five minutes at that heat is optimistic for two eggs over cold cream; expect roughly 10-14 minutes for set whites and liquid yolks.
- A water bath helps"Lay them on a tin" means a baking sheet. Setting the cocottes in a pan with an inch of hot water gives gentler, more even heat and keeps the cream from splitting or the whites from going rubbery at the edge.
- CocottesSmall straight-sided porcelain ramekins of about 4 oz. Two eggs each is generous for that size; use 6 oz dishes, or one egg per 4 oz cocotte.
- YieldSix dishes, twelve eggs, three clams apiece. A first course or a substantial breakfast for six.
- DonenessPull them when the whites are just opaque and the centers still wobble; carryover heat in the hot china finishes them at the table. Serve at once, with toast for the cream.
Alexander Filippini spent years in the kitchens of Delmonico's in New York, and his books read as a record of the hybrid cooking that restaurant produced: a French technique, oeufs en cocotte, filled with the most local ingredient available on the Atlantic seaboard. Littlenecks, the smallest market grade of the hard clam Mercenaria mercenaria, were abundant in New York waters at the turn of the century and turn up throughout American hotel cookery of the period, raw on ice, in chowder, and here in cream. The cocotte suits individual service: each guest gets a little dish that goes from oven to plate. The heavy hand with cayenne and nutmeg in a cream sauce is characteristic of the period, and the instruction to use "freshly opened" clams indicates the shellfish were to be shucked fresh.