French Provincial Cooking (42 page)

Quite often in cookery one comes across two or more dishes containing almost identical ingredients and seasonings, but which yet turn out to be quite different in taste and appearance.
Œufs à la tripe
and
œufs durs soubise
provide one such example, the latter having, to my mind, greater charm and finesse.

For the sauce:
lb. onions weighed when peeled, 1
oz. butter, pint of veal or chicken stock or milk, 1 scant dessertspoon of flour, salt, freshly ground white pepper, nutmeg and 2 or 3 tablespoons of cream.

Melt the finely sliced onions in the butter; when they are transparent and very pale yellow, after about 7 minutes, stir in the flour; add the warmed stock or milk and seasoning. Simmer gently for 15 minutes until the onions are quite soft. Sieve. Return the purée to the saucepan and if it is too thick add a little more stock; if too thin, let it reduce a little. If you like, it can be flavoured with a teaspoon of French mustard.

Hard boil 4 eggs, shell them while still warm, cut them in quarters lengthways, arrange them in circles in a round shallow fireproof egg dish in which they just fit. Over them pour the hot sauce, on top trickle the cream and then add a small sprinkling of very fine breadcrumbs. Put on the top shelf of a very hot oven for 5 minutes.

If you have an electric blender in which to purée the sauce, it can be made without the thickening of flour, and is all the better and lighter.

Œufs sur le plat
are fried eggs served in the dishes in which they have cooked, shallow metal, earthenware or other fireproof utensils with a little handle at each side; butter is melted in the dishes, and the eggs, usually 2 per person, previously broken into a plate, are slid gently in. Cover the pans, so that the eggs acquire their characteristic mirrored appearance without the business of spooning the whites over the yolks. Cook either on top of the stove over a low flame or in a moderate oven until the whites are set. About 4 minutes in a moderate oven should be enough, but timing depends as much upon the dish itself as upon the degree of heat. Some, such as the heavy enamel or porcelain-lined cast-iron ones, retain the heat more than thin metal ones, and the eggs continue cooking to an alarming degree after they have been taken from the fire, so this must be allowed for.

The great advantage of eggs cooked in this way is that you are always sure of getting your eggs hot; also the risk of the eggs breaking as they are transferred from pan to dish and from dish to plate is eliminated.

In that beguiling book
Cooking in Ten
Minutes,
¹⁷
Dr. Edouard de Pomiane suggests a dish which is a happy compromise between
œufs sur le plat
and our own eggs and bacon, a dish much admired in France. ‘Take two very thin slices of bacon. Melt some butter in the fireproof dish. Lower the gas. Lay the 2 slices of bacon on the butter, cut in two so as to cover the bottom of the dish. When the fat is transparent break two eggs into the dish. Turn up the gas. The white sets immediately. Break it here and there so that the surface white also cooks. Whatever happens do not touch the yolk. As soon as the white is cooked put the dish on a plate. Salt very lightly. Pepper with discretion.’

This recipe should prove very useful to those whose kitchens lack a proper supply of fireproof egg dishes, and the method certainly produces, as the author says, very good results.

‘To obtain perfect
œufs sur le plat,
they must be cooked over steam. If you have a stew or some vegetables cooking, replace the lid of the saucepan with a plate, or a china dish, according to how many eggs you have to cook. Put to melt in this dish, over the steam from the saucepan, a piece of fresh butter. When it is melted, break your eggs one by one into a saucer, taking care not to break the yolks. When all the eggs are broken, slide them gently into the butter in the dish and put the saucepan lid over them. They will cook evenly, the underneath of the plate being heated by the steam, and the yolks will be covered with a transparent white veil. Salt lightly, without letting the salt fall on to the yolks.’

B. RENAUDET:
Les Secrets de la Bonne Table

Two eggs per person cooked in butter in flat fireproof egg dishes, each dish garnished with 2 little fried chipolata sausages and a ring of tomato sauce made from skinned and chopped tomatoes cooked almost to a purée —3 tomatoes making ample sauce for two people. A very good and simple little dish, but all the same not so easy because of the problem of cooking the three different ingredients separately, all at the same time; so it is best to cook the sausages and the sauce first and keep them hot in the oven while you cook the eggs; and be sure to keep these covered while they are cooking so that the yolks come out with a nicely veiled appearance instead of having a hard yellow skin.

By fried eggs the French usually understand eggs fried in deep fat or oil, one at a time; they puff up like fritters, are taken out with a perforated spoon and laid on a folded cloth to drain. The operation requires a little practice and dexterity, but fried like this the eggs are delicious served on a bed of spinach, potato or sorrel purée, with sausages, or with fried bread and a tomato sauce. Here are the directions given by the famous
Cuisinier Durand
of Nîmes, published in 1830.

‘Break an egg into a plate; season it with salt and pepper, and put it into the frying-pan in boiling butter or oil; during the cooking tilt the handle of the frying-pan, so that the oil, flowing all to one side, completely surrounds the egg; have a care to sprinkle it with the same oil so that the white envelops the yolk, after which you remove the egg; do likewise with all the eggs you wish to fry, and when they are done, pour from the pan part of the oil; leave only enough to make a sauce; put into it a well-chopped shallot, season with salt, pepper and a thread of vinegar and pour it over the eggs.’

This is one of the most delicious and simple of egg dishes, but not usually practical to do for more than two or three people, for the eggs must come straight from stove to table without being kept waiting.

Fry your eggs gently in a little butter, keeping them covered. Transfer them to a very hot fireproof serving dish. Into the clean frying-pan put a dessertspoon of butter for every 2 eggs. Let it melt and when it is foaming and just turning colour, pour it over the eggs. Quickly pour a tablespoon of vinegar into the pan and let it boil. Pour this, too, over the
eggs
. Serve instantly.

It is important to note that any butter left in the pan in which the eggs have fried should be discarded before the fresh butter is put in (alternatively, use two pans). And in spite of its name, the second lot of butter is not cooked until it is black, but only until it is just turning a little darker brown than the shell of a hazel-nut.

Whatever foolproof instructions are given in cookery books for the poaching of eggs, most people find it a tricky task, and cannot do more than one at a time. The egg-poaching moulds which produce a sort of egg cake are not at all a satisfactory solution. After years of practice I find the two following methods the most reliable:

 

(1) First dip each egg in a saucepan of boiling water while you count 30 seconds. This process coagulates a thin outer layer of white nearest the shell, and when the egg is subsequently poached the rest of the white tends to spread and fly about less than when the raw egg is put straight into the water. Having carried out this first operation, boil a fresh pan of water (a sauté pan or deep frying-pan is better than a saucepan) acidulated with a few drops of vinegar. Break each egg into a saucer. When the water boils make a whirlpool in the centre by whizzing the water round with a wooden spoon. Into this slide your egg. Keep the water whirling round until it boils again. Remove the pan from the heat, cover it, and leave 2
to 3 minutes.

(2) Break the eggs into saucers. When the water is just at boiling point, slide in the egg. As the white starts to set, quickly, with a metal spoon roll your egg over, at least twice, so that it acquires a neat oval shape, the white wrapped round the yolk. It is not such a dangerous operation as it sounds. Then remove the pan from the heat, cover it, and leave 3
to 4 minutes. With this system 2 eggs can be done at once. Whatever cookery books say, it is almost impossible for amateurs to poach 6 eggs at a time by any method except that of the egg-poaching moulds.

When the eggs are ready, take them from the pan with a perforated spoon and lay them to drain on a folded cloth. Any trimming of white necessary to give the eggs an elegant appearance is done at this stage. They can be kept warm in a bowl of warm water. Although some cooks advocate the use of ‘eggs of the day’ for poaching, I prefer them two or three days old. The whites of true new laid eggs fly about too much. Old eggs, however, are quite useless for poaching, as the whites go tough and ropy or separate completely from the yolks, which also tend to break. As William Verral says in his
Cooks Paradise
, 1759: ‘From the experience I have had, I am sure it is not in the power of the best cook in the kingdom to poach stale ones handsome, notwithstanding they may come whole out of the shell.’

The vinegar in the water helps to coagulate the white, but cooks disagree violently as to whether or not salt should be added. Which probably goes to show it does not greatly matter. I never add it myself.

For the sauce, heat 1 oz. of butter in a heavy saucepan; stir in 2 dessertspoons of flour; when this mixture is smooth add gradually a little under
pint of milk; stir until you have a smooth thick sauce, season with a very little salt, pepper and nutmeg, and cook a good 10 minutes over a very low flame. Now add from 4 to 6 tablespoons of thick cream, and stir for 2 or 3 more minutes, before stirring in 3 to 4 tablespoons of grated Parmesan cheese and a good teaspoon of yellow Dijon mustard (Grey Poupon is the one I always use). Taste for seasoning; more salt may be necessary, depending upon the saltiness of the cheese.