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Shirred Eggs, Costa Rica
Peel and press three very sound bananas through a wire sieve into a small saucepan, adding a half gill milk and one gill cream, juice of a quarter lemon, half ounce butter, two saltspoons salt, half saltspoon cayenne pepper and half saltspoon grated nutmeg. Mix well with wooden spoon for one minute, then let boil five minutes and divide equally in six shirred-egg dishes. Carefully crack two fresh eggs into each dish, season with half teaspoon salt and two saltspoons white pepper, equally divided, set in oven three minutes, remove and serve.
A banana purée baked under eggs, in the style of a shirred-egg dish. The measurements are Gilded Age restaurant shorthand and the oven time is the one number you should ignore.
- Gills and saltspoonsA gill is half a cup, so this is 1/4 cup milk and 1/2 cup cream. A saltspoon is 1/4 teaspoon: two saltspoons salt is 1/2 teaspoon, half a saltspoon is a scant 1/8 teaspoon.
- Shirred-egg dishesSmall shallow ovenproof dishes, roughly 4 to 5 inches across — individual gratin dishes or wide ramekins. Depth matters more than width; the purée should sit as a thin bed, not a well.
- No oven temperature is givenThe book does not specify one. Shirred eggs are conventionally done at 375 to 400F, and warming the dishes with the purée from below.
- Three minutes will not cook the eggsAt any sane oven temperature twelve eggs in six dishes need 8 to 12 minutes before the whites are opaque and firm at the edges. Pull them when the whites are set and the yolks still tremble; the residual heat of the purée keeps cooking them at the table. If runny whites and barely warmed yolks are a concern in your household, use pasteurized eggs.
- Sieving the bananasVery ripe bananas go through a fine sieve with a rubber spatula in a minute; firmer fruit is easier in a food mill or blender. "Sound" here means unbruised, not underripe — green-shouldered bananas will taste starchy and chalky.
- The five-minute boilBanana purée with dairy scorches quickly and spits. Keep it at a bare simmer over low heat, stirring more or less continuously, until it thickens to the consistency of soft mashed potato. The lemon juice is there to stop the purée browning as much as to season it.
- SeasoningCayenne and nutmeg carry this dish; the half teaspoon salt and two saltspoons white pepper sprinkled over the eggs come to little more than a pinch each across six dishes, so season the purée properly before it goes into the dishes rather than relying on that sprinkle.
- YieldSix servings of two eggs each — a substantial breakfast or luncheon course. Serve with toast; the purée is loose enough to want something to sit on.
The International Cook Book, compiled by Alexander Filippini, who had spent years in the kitchens of Delmonico's in New York, worked through the world's cuisines dish by dish, and its "national" recipes are best read as what a New York hotel kitchen of the period believed a place tasted like rather than as field notes. The Costa Rica attribution reflects commerce as much as cookery: from the 1880s onward Costa Rican bananas moved north in enormous volume through the railway and shipping interests that became the United Fruit Company, and by the time this book appeared bananas were among the cheapest fruits on an American grocer's stand. That abundance is why the fruit turns up here in a savoury guise, sieved with cream and cayenne under baked eggs, at a moment when American cooks were still deciding whether the banana belonged with the fruit or the vegetables.