The beauty of a poached egg is for the yolk to be seen blushing through the white, which should only be just sufficiently hardened to form a transparent veil for the egg.
Cook until the white is firm, and lift out with a griddle cake turner and place on toasted bread. Serve immediately.
A tablespoonful of vinegar put into the water keeps the eggs from spreading.
Open gem rings are nice placed in the water and an egg dropped into each ring.
FRIED EGGS.
Break the eggs, one at a time, into a saucer, and then slide them carefully off into a frying pan of lard and butter mixed, dipping over the eggs the hot grease in spoonfuls, or turn them over, frying both sides without breaking them. They require about three minutes' cooking.
Eggs can be fried round like balls, by dropping one at a time into a quantity of hot lard, the same as for fried cakes, first stirring the hot lard with a stick until it runs round like a whirlpool; this will make the eggs look like balls. Take out with a skimmer. Eggs can be poached the same in boiling water.
EGGS AUX FINES HERBES.
Roll an ounce of butter in a good teaspoonful of flour; season with pepper, salt and nutmeg; put it into a coffeecupful of fresh milk, together with two teaspoonfuls of chopped parsley; stir and simmer it for fifteen minutes, add a teacupful of thick cream. Hard-boil five eggs and halve them; arrange them in a dish with the ends upwards, pour the sauce over them, and decorate with little heaps of fried bread crumbs round the margin of the dish.