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Eggs Scrambled with Croutons
1 cup small cubes white bread 1/4 tablespoon Argo or Kings- 2 tablespoons Mazola 4 eggs 3/4 teaspoon salt ford's Cornstarch 1/4 cup milk 1/8 teaspoon pepper Fry the bread in the Mazola until slightly brown. Add the eggs beaten, and combine with the milk, cornstarch and seasonings, and "scramble" as directed in the preceding recipe.
A quick skillet breakfast from a corn-products promotional book, where the cornstarch is there to keep the scrambled egg tender rather than to thicken anything. The ingredient list was set in two narrow columns and reads as one jumbled line, so untangle it before you start.
- The ingredients, sorted out1 cup small cubes of white bread; 2 tablespoons Mazola; 4 eggs; 1/4 cup milk; 1/4 tablespoon cornstarch; 3/4 teaspoon salt; 1/8 teaspoon pepper. The salt figure is high for four eggs; half a teaspoon is closer to current taste.
- MazolaA corn oil, still sold. Any neutral vegetable oil works, and butter gives better browning on the croutons if you are not bound to the original.
- Argo or Kingsford's cornstarchBoth were brands of the Corn Products Refining Company, which published this book. Plain cornstarch is the same thing. A quarter tablespoon is three-quarters of a teaspoon; slake it in the cold milk before it meets the eggs or it will leave grains.
- Why the cornstarch is thereIt sets slightly ahead of the egg protein and holds moisture, so the curds stay soft and are less likely to weep. The effect is real but modest; skip it and you have ordinary scrambled eggs.
- The missing methodThe instruction to "scramble as directed in the preceding recipe" points to a companion entry not reproduced here. Standard practice: low to moderate heat, pull the setting egg in from the edges, and take the pan off while the curds still look a little underdone.
- Bread cubesCut them about half an inch and use bread a day or two old. Fry them first, then either lift them out and fold them back in at the end for crisp croutons, or leave them in the pan as written, which gives softer, custard-soaked cubes.
- YieldTwo generous servings, or three as part of a larger breakfast.
This comes from one of the cookery booklets issued by the Corn Products Refining Company, the maker of Mazola oil and of Argo and Kingsford's cornstarch, and the brand names written directly into the ingredient list are the point of the book. Such volumes were given away or sold for a few cents through the first decades of the twentieth century, and their purpose was to find new uses for a product beyond its obvious one, hence cornstarch in scrambled eggs rather than only in puddings and sauces. The dish itself is older than the booklet: bread fried in fat and folded into eggs is thrift cookery of long standing, a way of stretching a few eggs across a family table and using up bread past its best. Adding a starch to soften egg curds is a technique that survives in restaurant kitchens, though a spoonful of cream or a splash of water is the more common modern choice.