Eggs poached with Sauce of minced Ham.—(No. 548.)
Poach the eggs as before directed, and take two or three slices of boiled ham; mince it fine with a gherkin, a morsel of onion, a little parsley, and pepper and salt; stew all together a quarter of an hour; serve up your sauce about half boiling; put the eggs in a dish, squeeze over the juice of half a Seville orange, or lemon, and pour the sauce over them.
Fried Eggs and minced Ham or Bacon.—(No. 549.)
Choose some very fine bacon streaked with a good deal of lean; cut this into very thin slices, and afterward into small square pieces; throw them into a stew-pan, and set it over a gentle fire, that they may lose some of their fat. When as much as will freely come is thus melted from them, lay them on a warm dish. Put into a stew-pan a ladle-full of melted bacon or lard; set it on a stove; put in about a dozen of the small pieces of bacon, then stoop the stew-pan and break in an egg. Manage this carefully, and the egg will presently be done: it will be very round, and the little dice of bacon will stick to it all over, so that it will make a very pretty appearance. Take care the yelks do not harden; when the egg is thus done, lay it carefully in a warm dish, and do the others.
*** They reckon 685 ways of dressing eggs in the French kitchen: we hope our half dozen receipts give sufficient variety for the English kitchen.
Tea.[339-*]—(No. 550.)
“The Jesuit that came from China, A.D. 1664, told Mr. Waller, that to a drachm of tea they put a pint of water, and frequently take the yelks of two new-laid eggs, and beat them up with as much fine sugar as is sufficient for the tea, and stir all well together. He also informed him, that we let the hot water remain too long soaking upon the tea, which makes it extract into itself the earthy parts of the herb; the water must remain upon it no longer than while you can say the ‘Miserere’ psalm very leisurely; you have then only the spiritual part of the tea, the proportion of which to the water must be about a drachm to a pint.”—Sir Kenelm Digby’s Cookery, London, 1669, page 176.
Obs.—The addition of an egg makes the “Chinese Soup,” a more nutritious and substantial meal for a traveller.
Coffee.[340-*]
Coffee, as used on the Continent, serves the double purpose of an agreeable tonic, and an exhilarating beverage, without the unpleasant effects of wine.