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Quaker Oats
Place in an enamelled saucepan three-quarters of a pint cold milk, half pint cold water and a teaspoon salt and let just come to a boil, then add two gills Quaker oats. Lightly mix and let boil rather slowly for fully one hour, lightly stirring at the bottom with the wooden spoon occasionally to prevent burning at the bottom. Pour into a bowl and serve with cold milk or cream. POACHED EGGS ON TOAST (12 pieces) No. 1. Have in quite a wide and rather low-edged pan on the fire (so that six eggs can easily float at the same time without jamming) three and a half quarts of water, seeing that the water is no less than four inches deep. Have on a dinner plate one tablespoon cold water. When the water in the pan boils, pour in one tablespoon vinegar. Carefully crack six fresh eggs on the wetted plate, without breaking the yolks, and gently slide them into the boiling water and poach for three minutes. Lift them up with a skimmer, neatly trim the edges, if there be any adhering; lay them on freshly prepared buttered or unbuttered toasts, two eggs on each, and keep warm. Repeat the same with six more and serve. By not using salt in poaching the eggs they will turn out whiter and more brilliant looking.
No.2 (12 eggs). Have a pan on the fire with same quantity of water as above, with a tablespoon salt and a tablespoon vinegar. Have another saucepan on the fire with two quarts boiling water. Carefully drop in six fresh eggs and let them just roll over for fourteen seconds; lift them up and gently drop in cold water; then repeat same process with six more. Lift them up from the cold water and lay on a plate.
When the first seasoned water thoroughly boils carefully and rapidly crack six of the eggs and drop them right in the centre--as near the surface of the water as the heat will permit. Poach for three minutes. Take them up with the skimmer, neatly trim off any adhering superfluous edges, lay them on freshly prepared toast, and proceed to prepare six more in this manner and serve. When the eggs are absolutely fresh the mode of preparing them described in No.1 is the best. When doubtful, or in winter months, No. 2 is the safest.
Two preparations run together here: a milk-cooked porridge and Filippini-style poached eggs in two versions. The measurements are pre-metric American and the oat timing belongs to a coarser product than what is on shelves now.
- Gills and pintsA gill is half a cup, so two gills of oats is one cup. Three-quarters of a pint of milk is 1 1/2 cups and half a pint of water is 1 cup, giving roughly 2 1/2 parts liquid to 1 part oats.
- The hour of boilingRolled oats sold today are thinner and more thoroughly steamed than the nineteenth-century product; they are done in about five minutes, and quick oats in one. An hour will give you glue. If you want the long simmer the recipe assumes, use steel-cut oats, which take 25 to 30 minutes and generally need more liquid than this.
- Enamelled saucepanEnamel gave a non-reactive surface, which is the likeliest reason for specifying it here. Any heavy-bottomed pan does the same job; the instruction to stir the bottom with a wooden spoon still applies, since milk solids catch there.
- SaltA full teaspoon for one cup of dry oats is on the generous side by modern taste. Half a teaspoon is closer to current practice, and adding it with the cold liquid as directed is unproblematic.
- YieldOne cup of dry oats with this much liquid serves two generously, three modestly.
- Poaching without saltThe recipe's claim that unsalted water gives whiter eggs is its own; note that its second method adds a tablespoon of salt anyway. The vinegar is the ingredient usually credited with helping the albumen set. Three minutes in boiling water gives a set white and a soft yolk; a bare simmer is gentler and keeps the whites from shredding.
- The 14-second dip in No. 2This is a deliberate pre-set of the outer white in the shell, so that older eggs with thin whites hold together when cracked into the pan. It is the same logic behind briefly dipping eggs before poaching that cooks still use, and it is the only reason to bother with the second saucepan.
- Volume of waterThree and a half quarts at four inches deep is not fussiness — depth lets the egg fall clear of the pan bottom and gather itself. Do not crowd more than a few eggs into a small pan.
The recipe is notable less for its method than for its name: by the time this book appeared, a trademarked brand of rolled oats was being used, at least in this recipe's title, where a cook of the previous generation would have written simply "oatmeal" or "porridge." Oats had long been a Scottish and northern English staple, eaten as coarse meal boiled for a good while; the American mills of the 1870s and 1880s changed that by steaming and flattening the groat so it cooked faster and kept longer in a sealed package, and heavy advertising put the brand name into household vocabulary. That an hour of boiling is still specified here suggests the transition was incomplete. The poached eggs that follow are pure professional kitchen practice, written for a cook turning out twelve at a time, which is why the instructions concern pan width, water depth and how to handle eggs of doubtful freshness in winter.