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A Dainty Dish
Place in the center of a delicate piece of toast, the yolk of a raw egg and heap around it the stiffly beaten white. Brown it slightly in a quick oven and serve.
A two-ingredient breakfast showpiece that depends entirely on handling: the white must hold its shape and the yolk must sit in it without breaking. Everything else is timing.
- Build the nest firstBeat the white to stiff peaks, spoon or pipe it onto the toast, and hollow out a well in the center before the yolk goes in. Setting the yolk down first, as written, risks it sliding or breaking as you heap the white around it.
- A quick ovenRead that as roughly 400-450F. At that heat the meringue takes on a little color within a few minutes; watch it rather than time it.
- Beating the whiteA scrupulously grease-free bowl helps, and yolk in the white will make it harder to bring to stiff peaks, so separate carefully.
- The toast"Delicate" most likely points to a thin slice, toasted dry and firm rather than pale. Soft toast collapses under the wet meringue and goes soggy underneath.
- How done the yolk getsBarely at all. The meringue insulates it, so after a few minutes in the oven the yolk is warm and still liquid, which is the point of the dish. If you are cooking for someone pregnant, elderly, very young or immune-compromised, use pasteurized shell eggs.
- SeasoningThe original gives none. Salt and pepper on the toast and a scrape of nutmeg or grated cheese folded into the white keep it from tasting merely of hot air.
- YieldOne egg and one slice of toast per person. Serve straight from the oven; the meringue starts to weep and sink within a couple of minutes.
Dishes of this kind appear across late-Victorian and Edwardian breakfast chapters under names like "eggs in a nest." The appeal was economy dressed as elegance: one egg and one slice of bread, arranged so it looked like something a cook had labored over. The name "egg in a nest" has since drifted to mean an egg fried in a hole cut in bread.