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Hen's-Nest Eggs
6 hard-cooked eggs 4 tablespoonfuls chopped cooked chicken 1 tablespoonful chopped parsley 2 tablespoonfuls melted butter Salt and pepper to taste Brown sauce Cool the eggs, separate the whites from the yolks, set the latter aside and cut the former into long, thin strips. Mix the chicken with the yolks
A garnish-minded dish of the chafing-dish era: the whites are shredded into a nest and the yolks bound with chicken into balls that sit in it. The method is simple, but several of the components assume knowledge a 1920s cook had and a modern one may not.
- Brown sauceIn a book of this period this means a basic espagnole or a plain roux-based gravy: butter and flour cooked to a nut brown, moistened with meat stock, simmered and strained. A good reduced chicken or veal stock thickened lightly will serve; anything sweet or ketchup-based will not.
- Hard-cooked, not hard-boiledFor clean separation and unshreddable whites, cover the eggs with cold water, bring just to a boil, take off the heat and stand 12 minutes, then chill in cold water. Vigorous boiling gives rubbery whites that tear when cut into strips.
- Cutting the nestHalve the whites lengthwise, then cut each half into strips no wider than a matchstick. Longer strips hold the nest shape better; a warmed plate helps them sit rather than slide.
- The yolk mixtureSix yolks to 4 tablespoons of finely chopped cooked chicken and 2 tablespoons melted butter makes a stiff paste. Sieve the yolks first so no lumps remain. The text here breaks off after 'Mix the chicken with the yolks', but the title implies the paste was rolled into small egg-shaped balls to sit in the nest of whites.
- Quantities as writtenThe parsley is one tablespoonful. The recipe does not say where it goes; chopped fine, it can be worked into the yolk paste or scattered over.
- Serving and yieldSix eggs make one substantial nest or two small ones. The recipe gives no serving count and no instruction beyond 'Brown sauce' in the ingredient list; assemble at the last moment, as the strips will not hold a shape long.
Novelty egg dishes shaped as nests, baskets or birds appear in American luncheon cookery around the turn of the century and after, offering something visually clever made from cheap larder ingredients. The appeal was economy dressed as whimsy: six eggs, a few spoonfuls of leftover chicken and a made sauce. The genre sits alongside moulded salads and stuffed tomatoes, and the nest conceit would suit an Easter table.