How To Boil Eggs In The Shell

Put the eggs into boiling water; if you like the white just set, two minutes is enough; if you wish the yolk to be set, it will take three minutes and a half.

"* Two poached eggs, with a lew fine dry fried collops of pure bacon, are not bad for breakfast, or to begin a meal," says Sir Kenelm Digby, M.D. in bis Closet of Cookery, London, 1669, page 167.

Observations

A new laid egg will not require boiling so long as a stale one, by half a minute.

Eggs Poached with Sauce of minced Ham.

Poached Eggs

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 them the juice of half a Seville orange, or lemon, and pour the sauce over them.

Fried Eggs And Minced Bacon

Choose some very fine bacon, streaked with a good deal of lean; cut this into very thin slices, and afterwards into the smallest square pieces; throw them into a stewpan, 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 stewpan a ladleful of melted bacon or lard; set it on a stove; put in about a dozen of the small pieces of .the bacon, then stoop the stewpan 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 yolks do not harden; and when the egg is thus done, lay it carefully on a warm dish, and do the others.

*** They reckon 685 ways of dressing eggs in the French kitchen; we hope we have here given sufficient variety for English palates, in the half' dozen preceding receipts

Egg Tea

"The Jesuit that came from China, A.D. 1664, told Mr. Waller, that to a pint of tea they frequently take the yolks 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 the water must remain upon the tea 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/' - SirKENELME Digby's Cookery, London, 1669, page 167.

Observations

The addition of the egg makes the tea a more nutritious and substantial meal for a traveller.