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Poached Eggs, Anchovy Toast, with Bacon
Mix one tablespoon anchovy paste with a tablespoon butter and spread it evenly over six freshly prepared toasts. Have twelve poached eggs, and arrange them on the toast, place a slice of freshly broiled bacon on top of the eggs and serve.
A savoury breakfast plate that assumes you can poach twelve eggs at once and time toast and bacon to land with them. The only real work is sequencing.
- YieldSix portions, two eggs on each toast. Halve it cleanly for three.
- Anchovy pasteStill sold in tubes; Gentleman's Relish or any anchovy paste works. One tablespoon to one tablespoon of butter is assertive and salty, which is the point against a bland poached egg — but taste before spreading, as some pastes are much saltier than others. Mashed anchovy fillets, about four, make a rougher substitute.
- ButterHave it properly softened, not melted, so the paste emulsifies into it rather than sliding off the toast. Salted butter here would be too much.
- "Freshly prepared toasts"The recipe does not say what bread; something sturdy and white, toasted the moment it is needed, suits the assembly. Toast made in advance goes leathery and will not hold two eggs without collapsing.
- Poaching twelve eggsUse the freshest eggs you can get — the whites hold together. A wide pan of barely trembling water with a splash of vinegar, three or four eggs at a time, three minutes for a set white and liquid yolk. Slide finished eggs into warm water and drain each on a cloth before it goes on the toast, or the toast turns to sponge.
- Broiled bacon"Broiled" here means grilled under direct heat, not fried. Streaky rashers under a hot broiler, three to four minutes a side, drained on paper. One rasher per toast, laid over the eggs.
- Order of workBacon first and kept warm, eggs next, toast last. Everything meets at the plate; nothing waits more than a minute.
- Runny yolksSoft-poached eggs are lightly cooked. Anyone pregnant, elderly, very young or immune-compromised should use pasteurised eggs or take the yolks firm.
Anchovy on hot buttered toast was a fixture of the British breakfast and supper table through the nineteenth century, sold as bottled essence or as the paste that became Gentleman's Relish, and the pairing of a salty fish spread with a soft egg travelled into American hotel and club cookery along with devilled kidneys and kippers. The construction here — all stacked — belongs to the same family as eggs Benedict, which is often said to have taken shape in New York hotels around the same period, though the origin story is contested; the anchovy butter does the work that hollandaise does there, cutting the yolk with salt instead of acid and fat. Little about it would have surprised a London breakfast room.