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Scrambled Eggs, Manchester
Prepare six English muffins. With a teaspoon scoop out all the interior, so as to form regular patties. Crack eight fresh eggs into a bowl, add half a gill milk, two saltspoons salt, two saltspoons white pepper, and sharply beat up with a fork for a minute. Heat a tablespoon butter in a frying pan, add twelve anchovies in oil cut in small pieces and gently cook three minutes, drop in the beaten eggs and cook six minutes, stirring meanwhile. Dress muffins on a large dish, evenly divide the scrambled eggs into them and serve.
A savoury breakfast dish of anchovy scrambled eggs served in hollowed English muffins. Two things need attention: the salt, and the six-minute cook time.
- Half a gill of milkA gill is half a cup, so half a gill is 1/4 cup (2 fl oz). That is generous for eight eggs and will slacken the curd; 2 tablespoons gives a firmer result.
- SaltspoonsA saltspoon is 1/4 teaspoon, so two is 1/2 teaspoon. With twelve anchovy fillets going into the pan, leave the salt out of the egg mixture entirely and correct at the end.
- Twelve anchovies'in oil' most likely means oil-packed fillets rather than whole salted fish. Drain them and blot the oil, or the butter plus anchovy oil will pool in the muffin. Three minutes over low heat is enough for them to break down into the butter.
- The six minutesSix minutes of stirring will give dry, granular eggs. Work over low heat and pull the pan off while the curds are still glossy and slightly loose, usually two to four minutes; they set further on the way to the table.
- ButterOne tablespoon for eight eggs is scant by modern practice. Two tablespoons, in a nonstick or well-seasoned pan, gives a softer curd and less sticking.
- Preparing the muffinsThe recipe hollows each muffin whole to form a case; it says nothing about splitting or toasting. Toasting the hollowed shells cut side up under a broiler or in a dry pan is a modern precaution, as an untoasted hollowed muffin softens quickly once the eggs land in it.
- YieldSix muffins and eight eggs serve three to six people depending on how many cases go to each plate. Assemble at the last moment and serve immediately.
Anchovy was one of the great background flavours of British cooking in the period, reaching the table as essence, as paste, and as bottled sauce; anchovy toast was a standard breakfast and savoury-course dish in Victorian and Edwardian households. This recipe simply folds that habit into scrambled eggs and uses the English muffin, a griddle-baked yeast bread, as an edible cup. Filippini's book assigns dishes to cities and countries as a matter of style, and Manchester here is more likely a label of English character than a claim of local origin; the same volume attaches place names to many preparations on similarly loose grounds. What the recipe does record is the era's fondness for the hollowed-bread case, a device that let a hotel kitchen turn a soft, unstable mixture into something that could be plated and carried.