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Scrambled Eggs Aux Croutons
Cut from a sandwich loaf three quarter-inch-thick slices, trim off crusts and cut in very small squares, place in a saucepan with two tablespoons melted butter and fry until a good golden colour. Break eight fresh eggs into a bowl, add a half gill milk, half teaspoon salt and two saltspoons pepper. Beat up with a fork for one minute, then drop in saucepan with croutons and cook for six minutes, briskly stirring meanwhile, dress on a hot dish and serve.
A plain French-style scramble with the bread cooked in the same pan, so the croutons soften slightly into the eggs rather than staying crisp. Two things need translating: the measurements and the cooking time.
- Half a gill of milkA gill is half a cup, so half a gill is 2 fl oz, about 1/4 cup. Across eight eggs that is roughly half a tablespoon each, a modest amount that will still give a soft curd.
- SaltspoonsA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon, so two saltspoons is 1/2 teaspoon of pepper. With eight eggs that reads as assertive but not unreasonable for the period; halve it if you prefer eggs on the mild side.
- The ambiguous slices"Three quarter-inch-thick slices" can be read either as three slices a quarter-inch thick or as slices three-quarters of an inch thick. The second reading gives considerably more bread, and sturdier croutons that hold their shape longer.
- Sandwich loafA fine, close-crumbed white loaf, softer and squarer than a rustic bread. Ordinary supermarket white sandwich bread is the direct equivalent; a day old cubes and browns more evenly than fresh.
- Six minutes is too longSix minutes of brisk stirring on a modern burner will give you dry, granular eggs. Work over low to medium-low heat and pull the pan when the curds are still glossy and slightly underset, usually two to three minutes, since they carry on cooking on the hot dish.
- Butter and panTwo tablespoons for both frying the bread and cooking the eggs is lean by modern habit. Use a nonstick or well-seasoned pan, and add a knob of cold butter off the heat at the end to stop the cooking and enrich the curd.
- Order of operationsBrown the croutons first, then lower the heat before the eggs go in. If the pan is still hot enough to have been frying bread, the eggs will set in ribbons before you can stir them.
- YieldEight eggs serves four generously as a breakfast or supper dish, three if it is the centre of the meal.
The word crouton is a diminutive of the French croûte, crust, and in professional cookery of the era it covered everything from diced bread cubes to the shaped bread supports on which entrees were dressed. Dishes of this kind, given a French name, are common in American cookbooks of the early twentieth century, the period when restaurant-trained chefs were writing for households. Frying the bread in the same pan butters it and flavours the eggs, and uses up the ends of a loaf. The instruction to "dress on a hot dish and serve" reflects the habit of sending eggs out the moment they leave the pan.