When served as a hors-d’œuvre, these eggs are always boiled hard. Put them in a saucepan of cold water, and leave them to cook for eight minutes after the boil is reached. Cool them, shell their pointed ends, and serve them in a nest composed of watercress or curled-leaf parsley.
N.B.—Test the freshness of the eggs before boiling them by plunging them in a bowl of cold water. If they float, their freshness is doubtful, and they should be discarded.
[157]
][369—LAPWINGS’ EGGS IN ASPIC]
Decorate a border-mould according to taste, and let a thin coating of very clear aspic jelly set on the bottom of the utensil. Besprinkle the articles used in decorating with a few drops of melted jelly, in order to keep them from shifting; then cover them with a few tablespoonfuls of jelly, and let it set. On this coating of jelly arrange the shelled, hard-boiled lapwings’ eggs with their points downwards, so that they may appear upright when the aspic is withdrawn from the mould. Fill up the mould by means of successive layers of melted jelly.
When about to serve, dip the mould into hot water; quickly wipe it, and then turn the aspic out on to a folded napkin lying on a dish.
[370—LAPWINGS’ EGGS A LA MODERNE]
Boil the eggs soft; mould them in [dariole-moulds], coated with jelly, and garnished in [Chartreuse fashion]. Heap a vegetable-salad, thickened with mayonnaise, in the middle of the dish, and place the eggs removed from their moulds all round.
[371—LAPWINGS’ EGGS A LA CHRISTIANA]
Cook the eggs as above; shell them; slice a piece off their thicker ends to make them stand, and arrange them on a dish, placing them upon little tartlet-crusts, garnished with a foie-gras purée.
For twelve eggs put two tablespoonfuls of foie-gras purée in a small saucepan; add thereto one tablespoonful of chopped truffles and as much melted jelly, the latter with a view to making the preparation more liquid. Take some of this preparation in a tablespoon and pour it over the eggs, taking care that each of these gets well covered with it. Let the coating set in the cool, and dish up the tartlets on a napkin, arranging them in the form of a circle with curled-leaf parsley as a centre-garnish.