A guide to modern cookery

The preparation consists of poached or soft-boiled eggs, garnished with blanched tarragon leaves, or coated or moulded with a very fine tarragon jelly. 533—COLD EGGS, FROU-FROU Select some very small poached eggs of equal size, cover them with a white chaud-froid sauce combined with about a third of its volume of a purée of hard-boiled egg-yolks. Garnish the top of each egg with an indented ring of very black truffle, and surround the base of the eggs with a narrow ribbon composed of chopped truffles. Glaze with jelly, and leave to set on ice. Prepare a salad of green vegetables (peas, French beans cut into dice or lozenges, asparagus-tops); thicken it with a very little mayonnaise mixed with melted jelly. Pour this preparation into an oiled mould, and leave it to set. For dishing, turn out the salad in the middle of a dish; surround the base with a line of chopped jelly; encircle the whole with the eggs, letting them rest on the jelly, and garnish the dish with a border of dice cut in very clear, white jelly. 534—COLD EGGS MOSCOVITE Slightly level both ends of some shelled, hard-boiled eggs. Surround the tops and the bases with three little anchovy fillets, and place a bit of truffle just half-way along each egg. Eggs prepared in this way resemble little barrels, whereof the anchovy fillets imitate the iron hoops, and the bits of truffle the bungs. By means of a tubular cutter empty the eggs with care; garnish them with caviare, and shape the latter to a point, outside the edges of the egg. Lay each egg in an artichoke-bottom, cooked white, and garnished with finely-chopped jelly, and arrange them in a circle on a dish with chopped jelly in the centre. 535—COLD EGGS A LA NANTUA Prepare some hard-boiled eggs to resemble little barrels, after the manner described above. For every six eggs keep ready and cold eighteen crayfish cooked 4 la Bordelaise. Shell the tails, put two aside for each egg, and cut the remainder into dice; finely pound the bodies and remains, add thereto three tablespoonfuls of thick cream, and rub through tammy. Add to this cullis one tablespoonful of thick mayonnaise. Bind the crayfish tails, cut into dice, with a few tablespoonfuls of this sauce, and garnish the eggs, emptied by the method indicated above, with the preparation of dice, making it stand out of the eggs in the shape of a small dome. Garnish each dome with a rosette composed of four halved crayfish tails and four truffle lozenges. Glaze well with jelly; set the eggs upon artichoke-bottoms garnished with a mayonnaise with crayfish cullis, and arrange in a circle on a dish. 536—COLD EGGS POLIGNAC Prepare some eggs a la Polignac, as explained under ‘* Moulded Eggs,”’ and leave them to cool. Select some moulds a little larger than those used in the cooking of the eggs; pour into each half a tablespoonful of melted, white jelly, and leave to set. Then put an egg into each mould, and fill up the space around the eggs with melted, white jelly. Leave to set, turn out the moulds, arrange the mouldings on a dish, and surround them with dice of faintly coloured jelly. 537—COLD EGGS A LA REINE Prepare some soft-boiled eggs, and leave them to cool. Take as many cottage brioches as there are eggs; trim them to the level of the fluting, and remove the crumb from the inside, so as to form little crouwstades of them. Garnish the bottom and the sides of these croustades with a fine mince of white chickenmeat, thickened with mayonnaise, and season moderately with cayenne. Place a shelled, soft-boiled egg in each croustade; coat thinly with mayonnaise slightly thickened by means of a jelly; lay a fine piece of truffle on each egg, and, when the sauce has set, glaze with jelly, using a fine brush for the purpose. Dish up on a napkin. 538—COLD EGGS, RUBENS