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Scrambled Eggs, Provencale
Crack eight fresh eggs in a bowl, add a half gill cream, half teaspoon salt, two saltspoons white pepper, and sharply beat up with a fork for one minute. Heat a tablespoon melted butter in a frying pan, add two cepes cut into small squares and briskly fry for three minutes, then add three finely chopped shallots and a half teaspoon freshly chopped parsley; lightly toss, drop in the eggs and cook for six minutes, stirring with a wooden spoon meanwhile, pour into a deep dish and serve.
A straightforward French scramble whose only difficulties are its archaic measures and a cooking time that assumes a much gentler flame than most modern burners deliver.
- Half a gill of creamA gill is half a cup, so half a gill is 4 tablespoons — 2 fl oz. That is a generous amount of cream for eight eggs and gives a soft, loose curd rather than a firm one.
- SaltspoonsA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon. Two of them is half a teaspoon of white pepper, which is assertive; white pepper is conventionally used in pale dishes so no dark flecks show.
- CepesCèpes are Boletus edulis, sold in Italian shops as porcini. Fresh ones are seasonal and expensive; about 1 oz dried, soaked in warm water for 20 minutes and squeezed dry, stands in well. Ordinary cremini will work but lose the point of the dish.
- Six minutes, and the heatThis is the hinge. Six minutes only makes sense over low heat with constant stirring — the slow French method that produces a creamy, almost sauce-like curd. Over a high flame the eggs will be dry and squeaky in ninety seconds. Keep the pan low, stir steadily, and pull it off while the eggs still look slightly underdone, as they carry on setting off the heat.
- ButterA single tablespoon for eight eggs is thin by modern standards. Two to three tablespoons in a nonstick or well-seasoned pan is more reliable, and the extra butter is no loss.
- Order of operationsThe mushrooms want a hot pan to drive off water and brown; the shallots want a cooler one. Fry the cèpes first as written, then lower the heat before the shallots go in so they soften rather than scorch, and only then add the eggs.
- ParsleyHalf a teaspoon is a whisper. A tablespoon, added at the very end rather than fried with the shallots, keeps its colour and flavour.
- YieldServes four as a light main course or breakfast, three if hungry. The "deep dish" matters: these eggs are meant to be soft enough to spread on the plate.
"Provençale" in the international restaurant vocabulary of the early twentieth century was a loose label, generally signalling garlic, tomato or olive oil; here it is stretched to cover shallots, parsley and cèpes, which speaks more to the grand-hotel kitchen's habit of dressing a dish with a regional name than to any strict Provençal tradition. The cèpe is the giveaway of a serious kitchen: prized in the southwest of France and around the Mediterranean, and gathered rather than cultivated. The slow-stirred scramble itself is thoroughly French — the technique of cooking eggs gently with cream until they thicken into a custard, rather than folding them in a hot pan, is what separates œufs brouillés from an American diner scramble, and it is why the recipe can call for six minutes without exaggeration.