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Scrambled Eggs, Francaise
Clip off tops of six round French rolls, scoop out soft part of each, lightly butter insides, set in the oven for five minutes or until a nice golden colour, remove and keep hot. Carefully crack eight fresh eggs in a bowl, add a finely chopped truffle, six chopped tarragon leaves, a half gill cream, half teaspoon salt, saltspoon cayenne, and sharply beat up with fork for a minute. Heat a tablespoon melted butter in sautoire, drop in eggs, cook for six minutes, sharply stirring frequently meanwhile, place rolls on a hot dish, fill up with scrambled eggs and serve.
A straightforward soft scramble served in hollowed rolls; the only real technique is heat control, since the eggs finish cooking inside the hot bread.
- Half a gill of creamA gill is half a cup, so half a gill is 1/4 cup. That is generous for eight eggs and gives a loose, custardy scramble rather than curds.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is about 1/4 teaspoon. With cayenne that is assertive but not aggressive; scale back to a pinch if you want the truffle to read clearly.
- SautoireA straight-sided sauté pan. Any heavy skillet or saucepan works, but the wide flat base is what lets you stir the eggs continuously without them setting at the edges.
- Toasting the rollsNo temperature is given. A moderately hot oven, 375F, will crisp buttered roll interiors to golden in about five minutes; watch them, as thin bread walls colour fast.
- Six minutes is the point, not a warningFrench scrambled eggs are cooked slowly over moderate-low heat with near-constant stirring, which is why six minutes is reasonable here. Pull them while still visibly loose the residual heat and the hot bread will carry them further.
- TruffleA black truffle, finely chopped, fresh or preserved. Jarred summer truffle or a few drops of truffle oil stirred in at the end are the practical substitutes; truffle paste works but mutes the perfume.
- TarragonSix leaves means fresh tarragon, chopped fine. Dried tarragon is a different and duller thing; use about 1/4 teaspoon if that is all you have.
- YieldSix filled rolls from eight eggs once course for six, or three servings if this is the centre of a breakfast.
Serving eggs or a ragout inside a hollowed, buttered and toasted roll was a familiar bit of French garnishing practice; the bread case did the work a pastry shell would otherwise do, at a fraction of the labour. The dish belongs to the hotel and restaurant idiom brought to American readers, where a French name and a slice of truffle turned a breakfast egg into a menu item. Truffles were expensive then as now, but appear casually throughout books of this period aimed at ambitious households, which says something about who the cookbooks were written for.