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Scrambled Eggs, Bretonne
Crack eight fresh eggs in a bowl, add half gill cream, half teaspoon salt and two saltspoons white pepper. Beat up with fork one minute. Heat tablespoon melted butter in a sautoire, add three skinned raw sausages cut in half-inch pieces and fry two minutes; add two slices bread cut in quarter-inch squares, and two tablespoons cooked green peas and gently cook five minutes, occasionally tossing meanwhile. Drop in eggs, let rest for two minutes, stir with wooden spoon until thoroughly thickened. Turn into a deep hot dish and serve.
A one-pan supper dish in the French style: sausage, croutons and peas folded into soft eggs. The units are Edwardian and the sausage timing is the one thing worth reworking.
- Half a gill of creamA gill is half a cup, so half a gill is 1/4 cup (4 tablespoons), about a tablespoon of cream for every two eggs. It gives a soft, loose curd.
- Two saltspoonsA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon, so this is 1/2 teaspoon white pepper. With the half teaspoon of salt, season lightly at the start and correct at the end, since the sausage brings its own salt.
- SautoireA straight-sided sauté pan, not a deep fryer and not a saucepan. Any 10-inch skillet works; nonstick makes the eggs easier to move.
- Cook the sausage through firstTwo minutes of frying plus five minutes with the bread will not reliably cook half-inch pieces of raw pork sausage. Brown them until firm and no longer pink at the centre before the bread goes in, then proceed as written.
- The breadTwo slices cut into quarter-inch dice is roughly a cup of small croutons. Use day-old bread; fresh bread absorbs the fat and turns greasy rather than crisp.
- "Let rest for two minutes"This means letting the eggs set at the base before you disturb them, which is what builds curd rather than a scramble of fine grains. Keep the heat moderate and stop stirring while the mixture still looks slightly wet, because it carries on cooking in the hot dish.
- PeasCooked green peas here means leftovers or drained tinned peas. Frozen peas need only a brief warming in the pan and should go in near the end so they stay whole.
- YieldEight eggs with sausage and bread serves four as a lunch or supper dish, three if it is the only course.
"Bretonne" in French classical cookery normally signals a garnish built on haricot beans, or a sauce with onion and white wine, but by the turn of the twentieth century restaurant menus applied the regional adjectives loosely, and here it simply marks an egg dish dressed up with sausage and peas rather than served plain. Note, too, the assumption that the peas are already cooked.