Boil a dozen eggs hard, throw into cold water, and at the end of half an hour remove the shells. Cut the eggs carefully in half, extract the yolks and rub these to a paste with three tablespoonfuls of salad oil, two tablespoonfuls of vinegar, a half-teaspoonful of made mustard, a dash of paprika, two or three drops of Tabasco sauce, and salt to taste. Form this paste into balls, put the balls back into the halved whites and fit the whites into place. Run a wooden toothpick through the two halves of each egg to hold them together. Wrap every egg in waxed or tissue paper to keep it from becoming dry. Eat cold, with or without mayonnaise dressing.
Omelets cachés
Wash and wipe six large, smooth tomatoes of uniform size. Cut a piece from the blossom end of each and lay aside. Scoop out the pulp carefully, not to break the walls of the tomato. Set together in an open pudding-dish and put this into a brisk oven until the tomatoes are smoking-hot, but not until they break and collapse. Have ready the pulp you have extracted, minced and stewed, seasoned with butter, pepper, salt, a little onion juice and sugar. Drain off most of the juice. Beat four eggs light, add four tablespoonfuls of cream, a tablespoonful of butter heated to a roux with one of flour, mix quickly with three tablespoonfuls of the drained tomato, and fill the tomato shells with them. Fit on the tops and set in a shallow pan upon the top grating of a quick oven. Five minutes should cook them. Slip a spatula under each tomato, transfer to a hot platter and serve at once.
Pass thin slices of brown bread with them.
Chicken or turkey timbales
Boil eight eggs very hard and leave them in cold water for two or more hours. Take the shells off, cut in half, and extract the yolks. Chop the whites before running them through a vegetable press. Now mix with them four heaping tablespoonfuls of the breast of chicken or turkey minced as finely as possible; season with half a teaspoonful of onion juice, paprika and celery salt to taste, and mix to a white paste with the whites of three eggs beaten to a standing froth. Have ready enough buttered “nappies” or pâté pans to hold the mixture; fill them, set in a pan of hot water and bake twenty minutes in a quick oven.
Turn out upon a hot platter; pour a good white sauce about the base, heap a teaspoonful of the powdered yolks on the top of each and serve.
The yolks are prepared by running through a colander or, better still, a vegetable press.
Scallop of chicken and eggs
Strew fine, dry, buttered crumbs over the bottom of a buttered baking-dish, then put in a layer of cold, cooked chicken cut into small dice. Cook a teaspoonful of chopped onion in a tablespoonful of butter till slightly colored, add a cupful of milk, and when hot stir in half a cupful of dry bread-crumbs. Add a teaspoonful of chopped parsley and a little salt and paprika. Let it cool until blood-warm, then stir in two well-beaten eggs, and pour the mixture over the meat. Cover with fine crumbs. Place in the oven and bake, covered, half an hour. Serve in the dish in which it is baked.