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Poached Eggs, Demi-Careme
Mix well in a small saucepan one tablespoon butter and one and a half tablespoons flour; heat for half a minute, then pour in one gill hot milk and a half gill cold cream; season with two saltspoons salt, one saltspoon cayenne pepper, and half saltspoon grated nutmeg. Lightly mix and let boil for five minutes and keep on a corner of the range. Evenly spread an anchovy butter on six freshly prepared toasts and place them on a hot dish. Prepare twelve poached eggs; arrange them over the toasts; pour the sauce, equally divided, over the eggs. Lay a very thin slice of truffle on top of each egg and serve.
A béchamel enriched with cream, spooned over poached eggs on anchovy toast. The whole thing takes fifteen minutes, so have the toast and sauce ready before the eggs go in.
- Gill and saltspoonA gill is half a cup, so the sauce takes 1/2 cup hot milk and 1/4 cup cold cream. A saltspoon is about 1/4 teaspoon: roughly 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon cayenne, 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg.
- The cayenne is not a misprintA quarter teaspoon in a scant cup of sauce is assertive by modern habit, though cayenne is called for freely in sauces throughout books of this kind. Start with half and adjust off the heat.
- Roux ratioOne tablespoon butter to one and a half tablespoons flour is flour-heavy, and with only 3/4 cup liquid the sauce will set very thick. Thin it with another few tablespoons of milk if it stops pouring.
- Five minutes of boilingThis is the one timing worth keeping. The flour needs the full simmer to lose its raw taste, and stirring throughout prevents the scorched patch that a heavy sauce in a small pan invites.
- "Keep on a corner of the range"On a coal range the cooler edge held sauces at a bare steam. Use the lowest burner setting or a bowl over hot water, with a buttered round of paper on the surface to stop a skin forming.
- Anchovy butterMash two or three oil-packed anchovy fillets, or a teaspoon of anchovy paste, into four tablespoons of softened butter. It carries much of the dish's seasoning.
- Poaching twelve eggsWork in batches of four in wide, barely trembling water with a splash of vinegar, three minutes for a liquid yolk, and hold them in warm water while the rest cook. Drain each on a towel before it touches the toast or the sauce will slide off.
- TruffleA fresh black truffle is optional extravagance; a jarred truffle slice or a whisper of truffle oil stands in. Omitting it costs the dish nothing structural.
- YieldSix toasts with two eggs each: six substantial breakfast or supper portions, or twelve lighter ones cut in half.
Demi-carême is mid-Lent, the Thursday of the third week of the fast, when the rules were relaxed and French towns held carnivals before the discipline resumed. The name sits oddly on this dish: no meat, but eggs, cream, butter, anchovy and truffle, none of which a strict fast day would have allowed. Its presence in a book called The International Cook Book reflects how thoroughly the French restaurant repertoire had colonised American cookery writing, calendar-based names and all.