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Fried Eggs, Tomato Sauce
Heat one and a half teaspoons melted butter in a large frying pan, crack in twelve fresh eggs, season with a half teaspoon salt and two saltspoons white pepper, fry for one minute, then set in oven for four minutes, carefully slide on a large dish, pour a gill hot tomato sauce and sprinkle a little chopped parsley over and serve.
A dozen eggs started on the stove and finished in the oven, sauced and sent out on one platter. The method is sound; the quantities are written for a hotel range and need a little translating.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon, so two saltspoons of white pepper is half a teaspoon. That is a fair amount of pepper for twelve eggs; white pepper is generally less aromatic than black, though not necessarily gentler on the palate.
- GillHalf a cup, or four fluid ounces. Enough to stripe the platter rather than flood it; the eggs should not be swimming.
- The butter is not enoughOne and a half teaspoons will not keep twelve eggs from welding to a modern pan. A pan of this period would likely have been well seasoned from constant use. Use two to three tablespoons, or work in a nonstick or heavy cast-iron skillet.
- Oven-safe pan, and pan sizeTwelve eggs in a single layer needs something around 14 inches, and it goes straight into the oven, so no plastic handles. Two 10-inch skillets run in parallel is the practical answer at home.
- Oven temperatureNone is given; the recipe says only 'set in oven'. Around 350F for the four minutes stated should set the whites while leaving the yolks soft; a hotter oven risks toughening the bottoms before the tops set.
- Sliding them outThe hinge of the dish. Loosen the whole sheet of eggs with a wide offset spatula before you tip the pan, and slide rather than flip. If the sheet tears, the presentation is gone even though the eggs are fine.
- Tomato sauceThe text says only 'hot tomato sauce', which in a book of this kind would most likely mean a plain cooked sauce rather than a raw puree. It must be hot when it hits the eggs, and poured around and over rather than stirred in.
- YieldTwelve eggs serves six as a main course at breakfast or lunch, or eight to ten as part of a larger table.
Eggs cooked in a sheet and sauced at the table belong to the era of the large hotel and restaurant kitchen, where a single pan going into the oven fed a whole party at once and the platter arrived intact. The pairing of fried or baked eggs with tomato has versions across the Mediterranean and the Middle East, and the dish has a French cousin in oeufs au plat, finished in the oven with a spoonful of sauce. The instruction to use white pepper may belong to the same tradition, avoiding black specks in a pale dish. Whatever its origins, this entry gives its quantities to the half teaspoon but never names an oven temperature at all.