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An Egg Dish
Beat the whites of seven eggs to a stiff broth. Butter a pudding dish (which can be sent to table); put the whites in, then drop the yolks around and a little salt on top and just before serving, set on top grate in the oven; bake a light brown.
A savory baked meringue with the yolks left whole on top — a dish that lives or dies on timing, since beaten whites begin collapsing the moment they are spread.
- "Stiff broth"Read this as "stiff froth" — a printer's slip. Beat the whites to firm peaks that hold their shape when the whisk is lifted, but stop short of dry and grainy.
- The pudding dish"Which can be sent to table" means an oven-to-table vessel: a shallow earthenware or glass baker, buttered. A 9-inch pie plate or a 1½-quart gratin dish is the right size for seven whites.
- "Top grate in the oven"The upper rack, close to the heat, so the surface colors before the whites dry out. On a modern range, the top third of a 350F oven works; a broiler is faster but will scorch the meringue in under a minute if unwatched.
- Temperature and timeThe original gives neither. At 350F, expect roughly 10 to 15 minutes, long enough for the whites to set and take color; the yolks, sitting exposed on top, will film over and may set partly or wholly through in that time. Longer baking turns the whites squeaky and the yolks chalky.
- Make wells for the yolks"Drop the yolks around" works better if you press shallow hollows into the whites with the back of a spoon first. Otherwise the yolks slide off the mound and break as the meringue rises.
- Bake immediatelyThe instruction "just before serving" is the hinge. Beaten whites weep and sink within minutes, so assemble and put the dish in the oven at once, and carry it straight from oven to table.
- YieldSeven whites make a light dish for three or four at breakfast, and it wants toast alongside — there is nothing here but egg and salt.
Savory baked egg dishes of this kind appear in American cookbooks of the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, where the separated egg served as a small technical showpiece: the whites carried air, the yolks stayed whole for visual effect, and the whole thing depended on a hot oven and a cook standing ready. The sweet relative -- whites poached and served with custard, oeufs a la neige, "eggs in snow" -- is far better known than this salted, oven-browned version. The specification that the dish be one "which can be sent to table" is a period detail worth noticing: it points to ovenware handsome enough to serve from, which spared one transfer and spared the puff its collapse.