Cold Eggs

The preparation of cold eggs is not limited by classical rules; it rests with the skill and artistic imagination of the operator, and, since fancifulness and originality are always closely allied to artistic imagination, it follows that the varieties evolved may be infinite.

Indeed, so various and numerous are the recipes dealing with this kind of egg-preparations that I must limit myself to a selection only of the more customary ones, culled as far as possible from my own repertory.

525—COLD EGGS ALEXANDRA

Take some cold, well-trimmed, poached eggs; dry them and cover them with a white chaud-froid sauce. Place a fine indented slice of truffle in the centre of each, and sprinkle with a cold, white, melted aspic jelly until they are thinly coated therewith. Slip the point of a small knife round each egg with the view of moving them more easily, and transfer them to oval tartlet-crusts made from puff-paste trimmings, baked without colouration.

Lay a border of caviare round the eggs; dish them in the form of a crown, and put some chopped jelly in the centre.

526—COLD EGGS A L’ANDALOUSE

Cover some cold, well-dried, poached eggs with a tomato purée combined with a full third of its volume of Soubise purée and one-half pint of melted aspic jelly per pint of sauce. Cut some pimentos, marinaded in oil, into very thin strips, and lay these, after the manner of a lattice, upon each egg.

Now garnish as many oiled, oval tartlet-moulds as there are eggs with tomato purée, thickened with jelly, and let the garnish set on ice. Turn out the moulds, and put an egg upon each of the tomato tartlets; arrange the latter in a circle on a dish surrounded with a chain composed of linked rings of onion, and garnish the centre with chopped, white jelly.

527—COLD EGGS ARGENTEUIL

Coat some well-dried, soft-boiled eggs, slightly cut at their base to make them stand, with a white chaud-froid sauce combined with a good third of its volume of asparagus-tops purée. Sprinkle repeatedly with cold, melted, white jelly, until a glossy coating is obtained.

Garnish the centre of a dish with a salad of asparagus-tops; surround this with fine slices of cold potato, cooked in water and cut up with an even fancy-cutter, one inch in diameter, and arrange the eggs all round.

528—COLD EGGS CAPUCINE

Carefully dry some cold, poached eggs, and half-coat them lengthwise with a white chaud-froid sauce; complete the coating on the other side with a smooth purée of truffles, thickened with jelly. Leave these two coats to set, placing the eggs in the cool or on ice for that purpose.

Garnish the centre of a round dish with a small pyramid of cold, truffled Brandade of _morue_, and set the eggs round the latter.

529—COLD EGGS CARÊME

Cook the eggs on the dish, leave them to cool, and trim them with an even fancy-cutter, oval in shape. Place each egg on an oval tartlet-crust, garnished with dice of cooked salmon, cohered with mayonnaise.

Surround with a thread of caviare, and lay a thin slice of very black truffle on each egg.

530—COLD EGGS COLBERT

Garnish some small, oval moulds in _Chartreuse fashion_, _i.e._, like a draught-board. Put a small, cold, poached egg into each mould, fill up with melted, white jelly, and leave to set. Garnish the centre of a dish with a heaped vegetable salad; arrange the eggs taken from their moulds around this, and surround with a little chopped jelly.

531—COLD EGGS COLINETTE

Let a thin coat of white jelly set upon the bottom and sides of some small, oval moulds. Garnish the latter with some small dice, consisting of white of egg and truffles, placing them so as to simulate a draught-board; now insert a very small, cold, poached egg into each mould, and fill up with a melted jelly.

Garnish the centre of a dish with a “Rachel” salad, encircled by a ring of sliced, cold potatoes, cooked in water, and place the eggs, removed from their moulds, all round. Border the dish with indented crescents of white jelly.

532—COLD EGGS WITH TARRAGON

Mould these in _baba-moulds_, or in porcelain _cocottes_; sometimes they may simply be dished up on small tartlet-crusts.

The preparation consists of poached or soft-boiled eggs, garnished with blanched tarragon leaves, or coated or moulded with a very fine tarragon jelly.

533—COLD EGGS, FROU-FROU

Select some very small poached eggs of equal size, cover them with a white chaud-froid sauce combined with about a third of its volume of a purée of hard-boiled egg-yolks.

Garnish the top of each egg with an indented ring of very black truffle, and surround the base of the eggs with a narrow ribbon composed of chopped truffles. Glaze with jelly, and leave to set on ice.

Prepare a salad of green vegetables (peas, French beans cut into dice or lozenges, asparagus-tops); thicken it with a very little mayonnaise mixed with melted jelly. Pour this preparation into an oiled mould, and leave it to set. For dishing, turn out the salad in the middle of a dish; surround the base with a line of chopped jelly; encircle the whole with the eggs, letting them rest on the jelly, and garnish the dish with a border of dice cut in very clear, white jelly.

534—COLD EGGS MOSCOVITE

Slightly level both ends of some shelled, hard-boiled eggs. Surround the tops and the bases with three little anchovy fillets, and place a bit of truffle just half-way along each egg. Eggs prepared in this way resemble little barrels, whereof the anchovy fillets imitate the iron hoops, and the bits of truffle the bungs. By means of a tubular cutter empty the eggs with care; garnish them with caviare, and shape the latter to a point, outside the edges of the egg.

Lay each egg in an artichoke-bottom, cooked white, and garnished with finely-chopped jelly, and arrange them in a circle on a dish with chopped jelly in the centre.

535—COLD EGGS A LA NANTUA

Prepare some hard-boiled eggs to resemble little barrels, after the manner described above. For every six eggs keep ready and cold eighteen crayfish cooked à la Bordelaise. Shell the tails, put two aside for each egg, and cut the remainder into dice; finely pound the bodies and remains, add thereto three tablespoonfuls of thick cream, and rub through tammy. Add to this cullis one tablespoonful of thick mayonnaise.

Bind the crayfish tails, cut into dice, with a few tablespoonfuls of this sauce, and garnish the eggs, emptied by the method indicated above, with the preparation of dice, making it stand out of the eggs in the shape of a small dome. Garnish each dome with a rosette composed of four halved crayfish tails and four truffle lozenges.

Glaze well with jelly; set the eggs upon artichoke-bottoms garnished with a mayonnaise with crayfish cullis, and arrange in a circle on a dish.

536—COLD EGGS POLIGNAC

Prepare some eggs à la Polignac, as explained under “Moulded Eggs,” and leave them to cool. Select some moulds a little larger than those used in the cooking of the eggs; pour into each half a tablespoonful of melted, white jelly, and leave to set. Then put an egg into each mould, and fill up the space around the eggs with melted, white jelly.

Leave to set, turn out the moulds, arrange the mouldings on a dish, and surround them with dice of faintly coloured jelly.

537—COLD EGGS A LA REINE

Prepare some soft-boiled eggs, and leave them to cool. Take as many cottage brioches as there are eggs; trim them to the level of the fluting, and remove the crumb from the inside, so as to form little _croustades_ of them. Garnish the bottom and the sides of these _croustades_ with a fine mince of white chicken-meat, thickened with mayonnaise, and season moderately with cayenne. Place a shelled, soft-boiled egg in each _croustade_; coat thinly with mayonnaise slightly thickened by means of a jelly; lay a fine piece of truffle on each egg, and, when the sauce has set, glaze with jelly, using a fine brush for the purpose.

Dish up on a napkin.

538—COLD EGGS, RUBENS

Season some cooked young shoots of hops with salt and freshly-ground pepper; add thereto some chopped parsley and chervil, and a purée of plainly-cooked tomatoes combined with just sufficient jelly to ensure the cohesion of the hops. Mould in oiled tartlet-moulds.

Coat some well-dried, cold, poached eggs with white chaud-froid sauce; garnish with pieces of tarragon leaves, and glaze with jelly.

Turn out the tartlet-moulds; set an egg on each of the mouldings, and arrange them in a circle on a dish, placing between each egg a piece of very clear jelly, cut to the shape of a cock’s comb.

Garnish the centre of the dish with chopped jelly.

CHAPTER XIII

Soups are divided into two leading classes, viz.:—

1. Clear soups, which include plain and garnished consommés. 2. Thick soups, which comprise the Purées, Veloutés, and Creams.

A third class, which is independent of either of the above, inasmuch as it forms part of plain, household cookery, embraces vegetable soups and Garbures or _gratined_ soups. But in important dinners—by this I mean rich dinners—only the first two classes are recognised.

When a menu contains two soups, one must be clear and the other thick. If only one is to be served, it may be either clear or thick, in which case the two kinds are represented alternately at different meals.

In Part I. of this work I indicated the general mode of procedure for consommés and thick soups; I explained how the latter might be converted from plain purées into veloutés or creams, or from veloutés into creams; and all that now remains is to reveal the recipes proper to each of those soups.

_Remarks._—In the course of the recipes for consommés, given hereafter, the use of Royales (Nos. 206 to 213) and of Quenelles, variously prepared (Nos. 193 to 195 and 205), will often be enjoined. For the preparation of these garnishes, therefore, the reader will have to refer to the numbers indicated.

The quantities for the clear soups that follow are all calculated to be sufficient for a standard number of six people, and the quantity of Royales is always given in so many _dariole-moulds_, which contain about one-eighth pint, or _baba-moulds_, which hold about one-fifth pint.

Of course, it will be understood that the poaching need not necessarily have been effected in these moulds, for very small “Charlotte” moulds would do quite as well. But I had recourse to the particular utensils mentioned above, in order that there might be no sort of doubt as to the exact quantity of royale it would be necessary to prepare for any one of the soups.