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Shirred Eggs, Xoxios
Lightly butter six shirred-egg dishes, sprinkle over a half teaspoon fine, freshly chopped mint and crack two fresh eggs in each dish. Season evenly with a half teaspoon salt and two saltspoons pepper, pour in a tablespoon cream and sprinkle a little grated Parmesan cheese over eggs in each dish, then set to bake in oven for five minutes, remove and serve.
A dish of individually baked eggs that needs only two decisions the original leaves out: the oven temperature and a realistic time.
- Shirred-egg dishesThese are shallow individual ovenproof dishes, usually about 4-5 inches across, the sort used in French kitchens for oeufs sur le plat. Small gratin dishes, cazuelas or wide ramekins all work; a deep narrow ramekin will steam the eggs rather than set them evenly.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is about a quarter teaspoon, so two saltspoons is roughly half a teaspoon of pepper.
- How the seasoning divides'Season evenly' suggests the half teaspoon salt and two saltspoons pepper are totals for all six dishes rather than per dish, and the mint most likely reads the same way, though the wording is ambiguous. The tablespoon of cream and the Parmesan are explicitly per dish.
- Oven temperatureNone is given. Bake at 400F; at that heat the whites set from the edge in without the cream breaking or the cheese scorching.
- Five minutes is not enoughTwelve eggs in six cold dishes will still be underdone in five minutes. Expect 10 to 14 minutes at 400F, until the whites are opaque and just firm and the yolks still move when the dish is tilted. Pull them slightly under, as the hot dishes carry on cooking at the table.
- Warm the dishesButtering the dishes and setting them in the oven for a minute or two before the eggs go in shortens the bake and keeps the whites from spreading thin and rubbery.
- MintChop it just before use, as the recipe insists. Dried mint has a dusty, medicinal edge here; spearmint is the right note, not peppermint.
- YieldSix servings of two eggs each. With bread and something sharp alongside it is a light supper as much as a breakfast.
Shirring is simply baking eggs in a shallow buttered dish, the English name for the French oeufs sur le plat; the origin of the word is uncertain, though it is often said to come from a small metal dish called a shirr. The dish is filed under a Greek-looking name, and the seasoning supports it: fresh mint with eggs and cheese is a long-standing combination around the eastern Mediterranean, where mint does the work that parsley or chives do further north. It points to how these international collections worked -- a foreign name and one distinctive flavouring attached to a technique any hotel kitchen already knew by heart.