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Shirred Eggs with Left-Over Creamed Meat or Fish
Put a tablespoon of leftover creamed meat or fish in each shirred egg dish and finish as directed in the preceding recipe.
A two-line recipe that leans entirely on the one before it, so the base method has to be supplied. Shirred eggs are simply eggs baked in a shallow buttered dish until the whites set, and everything here turns on temperature and timing.
- What a shirred egg dish isA shallow individual dish of earthenware, glass or metal, roughly 4 to 5 inches across, with low sides. A ramekin, a small gratin dish or a cast-iron egg pan all work; a deep cocotte steams the egg instead of baking it.
- The base method the recipe assumesThe preceding recipe is not reproduced here, so the method has to be inferred: butter the dish generously, add the creamed filling, break in one or two eggs, season, spoon over a little cream or dot with butter, and bake in a moderate oven (a modern equivalent would be roughly 325 to 350F) for about 10 to 15 minutes until the whites are just opaque and the yolks still liquid. Carryover heat in a hot dish keeps cooking the egg after it leaves the oven, so pull it a shade under.
- Warm the filling firstA cold tablespoon of creamed meat under the egg means the egg sets before the filling is hot through. Bring the creamed mixture to a simmer on the stove, to 165F, before it goes in the dish.
- Which leftovers qualifyCreamed meat or fish is a flour-and-milk sauce dish, refrigerated at 40F or below and used within a day or two. Anything that sat out unrefrigerated overnight should be discarded rather than baked into eggs.
- Salt fish and salt saucesCreamed salt cod or ham is already seasoned; season the egg itself only lightly and taste the filling before assembling.
- A browned topIf the surface stays pale, a minute under the broiler or a scatter of buttered crumbs or grated cheese before baking browns the top without overcooking the yolk.
- YieldOne dish with two eggs and a tablespoon or two of filling serves one at breakfast. Bake all the dishes together on a sheet pan so they come out at the same moment.
Shirred eggs were a fixture of American breakfast and luncheon service from the late nineteenth century into the 1930s. The name is often said to come from the vessel -- a shallow "shirring dish" that went straight from oven to table -- though the origin of the term is not settled. French cookery called much the same thing oeufs sur le plat, and the two terms were used more or less interchangeably in English-language books of the period. The interest of this particular entry is the economy behind it. Household manuals of the era treated creamed leftovers as a standing resource, thinned with white sauce and redeployed under toast, in patty shells, or as here beneath a baked egg. Writing a recipe that consists of one sentence and a cross-reference was itself a form of thrift.