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Shirred Eggs, Heckscher
Plunge two medium, sound, fine red tomatoes in boiling water for one minute, take up and peel them, then cut into pieces and keep on a plate. Finely mince four medium, fresh mushrooms, neatly peeled, washed and thoroughly drained, and place them in a small saucepan with a finely minced green pepper and half an ounce raw ham cut into very small dice pieces; add a tablespoon of butter, place the pan on the fire and gently cook for ten minutes, frequently mixing with the wooden spoon meanwhile. Add the tomatoes; season with three saltspoons salt and one saltspoon white pepper; lightly mix. Finely chop up together a quarter bean sound garlic, one branch well-washed and drained parsley and one branch chervil, and add to the tomato pan. Lightly mix and let briskly cook for six minutes. Pour this preparation into a large baking dish; carefully crack twelve fresh eggs over the tomatoes. Mix half teaspoon of salt with two saltspoons of white pepper and a saltspoon ground nutmeg, and evenly sprinkle the seasoning over the eggs. Arrange two tablespoons of sweet cream over the yolks of the eggs. Set in the oven to bake for six minutes. Remove, place the baking dish on another cold one and serve.
A shirred-egg dish for a crowd: a quick tomato-mushroom-ham compote baked under a dozen eggs. The whole thing hinges on the pan being shallow and wide enough that twelve eggs sit in a single layer.
- SaltspoonsA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon. Three saltspoons of salt is 3/4 teaspoon; the second seasoning, half a teaspoon salt with two saltspoons pepper, is a further 1 teaspoon of seasoning across twelve eggs.
- "A quarter bean" of garlic"bean" is Filippini's usual word for a clove of garlic, so this is a quarter of one. Either way the intent is a whisper of garlic, not a note of it -- use no more than half a clove.
- Raw hamThis means dry-cured ham eaten without cooking " prosciutto, serrano, or a country ham. Half an ounce is a single thin slice, diced fine; it is there for salt and perfume, so do not substitute a wet boiled ham.
- The six minutesSix minutes only works if the tomato base goes into the oven still hot and the dish is wide and shallow. Cook to the look of it: whites opaque and just firm, yolks still liquid. Expect 8 to 12 minutes in most home ovens, and remember carryover in a heavy dish.
- Watery tomatoesTwo tomatoes will throw a good deal of liquid during the six-minute brisk cook. Let it reduce until the mixture mounds on the spoon; a loose base will thin out under the eggs and refuse to set.
- The dishTwelve eggs in one layer wants a gratin dish or shallow roaster of roughly 10 by 14 inches. Crowding them into anything deeper gives set edges and raw centres.
- Setting it on a cold dishThis is not decoration. Standing the hot baking dish on a cold plate pulls heat from the base and slows the eggs cooking on after they leave the oven.
- YieldTwelve eggs serves six generously at breakfast or lunch, with bread; the original assumes a table, not a plate.
The recipe comes from Alexander Filippini, long a chef at Delmonico's in New York, whose books recycle the restaurant habit of naming dishes for patrons and public figures -- the Heckschers were a well-known New York name of the period, and the attribution tells you more about the dining room than about the food. The dish itself follows standard French practice: "shirred" is the American term for eggs baked in a shallow dish, the equivalent of the French oeufs sur le plat, and the tomato, pepper, mushroom and ham base is close in spirit to the sort of garnish a menu card might have called portugaise or basquaise. What marks it as hotel cooking rather than home cooking is the scale -- a dozen eggs cracked into one dish, seasoned in a single sweep, and out of the oven in minutes for a table already seated.