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Scrambled Eggs, with Tarragon
Carefully crack eight fresh eggs in a bowl, add half a gill cold milk and a teaspoon finely chopped fresh tarragon. Season with half teaspoon salt and two saltspoons white pepper. Sharply beat up with a fork for one minute, then proceed to cook the eggs.
A bare-bones formula from a book that assumes you already know how to scramble eggs. The measurements are the part that needs translating; the technique is left to you.
- Half a gillA gill is half a cup, so half a gill of milk is 1/4 cup (60 ml) for eight eggs. That is a generous amount of liquid, which is what gives the loose, creamy result this style of cooking aims at.
- SaltspoonsA saltspoon is generally reckoned at a quarter teaspoon, so two saltspoons of white pepper is 1/2 teaspoon. With 1/2 teaspoon of salt as well, the seasoning is on the assertive side; taste as you go, especially with fine table salt.
- "Then proceed to cook the eggs"The original assumes the method is already known. Butter a heavy pan, keep the heat low, and stir constantly, pulling the setting curds off the base. Take the pan off the heat while the eggs still look slightly underdone; residual heat finishes them.
- Beating for one minuteA full minute of sharp beating with a fork is deliberate. It breaks the whites down completely so the mixture cooks as one texture rather than in streaks of white and yellow.
- TarragonFresh tarragon is essential here; dried loses the anise note and turns hay-like. If you must substitute, use about a third of the quantity of dried and add it to the milk first to soften. Chop the fresh leaves at the last moment, as bruised tarragon browns quickly.
- YieldEight eggs serves four as a main breakfast dish, or six as part of a larger meal.
This is one of the terse entries characteristic of Alexandre Filippini's The International Cook Book, written by a chef long associated with Delmonico's in New York and pitched at readers who wanted the restaurant repertoire reduced to its essentials. Tarragon, estragon in French kitchens, was one of the four classic fines herbes along with parsley, chervil and chives, and its pairing with eggs is thoroughly French: the same affinity underlies béarnaise sauce, which is essentially tarragon carried in egg yolk and butter. The white pepper rather than black is often said to be a professional habit, the conventional explanation being that no dark specks should mar the pale surface of the eggs.