POACHED EGGS WITH GRAVY. (ENTREMETS.)
Œufs Pochés au Jus.
Dress the eggs as above, giving them as good an appearance as possible, lay them into a very hot dish, and sauce them with some rich, clear, boiling veal gravy, or with some Espagnole. Each egg, for variety, may be dished upon a crouton of bread cut with a fluted paste-cutter, and fried a pale brown: the sauce should then be poured round, not over them.
Poaching is the best mode of dressing a swan’s egg,[[157]] as it renders it more than any other delicate in flavour; it is usually served on a bed of spinach. Only the eggs of quite young swans are suited to the table: one is sufficient for a dish. It may be laid on a large crouton of fried bread, and sauced with highly flavoured gravy, or with tomata-sauce well seasoned with eschalots.
[157]. We fear that want of space must compel us to omit some other receipts for swans’ eggs, which we had prepared for this chapter.
ŒUFS AU PLAT.
A pewter or any other metal plate or dish which will bear the fire, must be used for these. Just melt a slice of butter in it, then put in some very fresh eggs broken as for poaching; strew a little pepper and salt on the top of each, and place them over a gentle fire until the whites are quite set, but keep them free from colour.
This is a very common mode of preparing eggs on the continent; but there is generally a slight rawness of the surface of the yolks which is in a measure removed by ladling the boiling butter over them with a spoon as they are cooking, though a salamander held above them for a minute would have a better effect. Four or five minutes will dress them.
Obs.—We hope for an opportunity of inserting further receipts for dishes of eggs at the end of this volume.