THE FOOD HISTORIAN
  • Home
  • About
    • Contact >
      • Media Requests
      • Submissions
    • In the Media
    • Speaking Engagements
    • Consulting
    • Leave a Tip
  • Projects
    • Blog
    • Book
    • Historical Supper Club
    • Newsletter
    • Food History Happy Hour
    • Book Reviews
    • Podcast
  • Resources
    • Food Historian Bookshop
    • Recorded Talks
    • Historic Cookbooks
    • Vintage Cookbooks
    • Bibliography
    • Food Exhibits
    • TV and Film
    • Food Historian Library
    • Printable Newsletters
    • Thesis
    • Other Publications
  • Events

Food History Blog

HISTORY, RECIPES, VINTAGE COOKBOOKS, PROPAGANDA POSTERS

Meatless Monday: Eggs en Cocotte with Sauteed Mushrooms (1912)

2/28/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
I love brunch. Not the kind you wait in line for, crowded and busy and loud. I love brunch made at home. It's as quiet or loud as you want it to be, the service is usually pretty good, and while there's the effort of making food, if you play your cards right, it's always hot when it gets to the table, and hopefully someone else will do the washing up. 

Eggs have long been a breakfast staple. If you've a hot skillet, they cook up in a flash. And if you keep chickens, you have a fresh supply every day, at least during the warmer months. But getting a bunch of eggs hot and cooked to order to the table can be a precarious thing when you're hosting. So I took to my historic cookbooks and found a viable solution - eggs en cocotte.

Technically, it's oeufs en cocotte, which is French for eggs baked in a type of dish called a cocotte, which may or may not have been round, or with a round bottom and/or with legs. Sometimes also called shirred eggs, which are usually just baked with cream until just set, these days en cocotte generally means the dish spends some time in a bain marie - a water bath. 

The cookbook recipe I used was from Practical Cooking & Serving by prolific cookbook author Janet McKenzie Hill. Originally published in 1902, my edition is from 1912. You can find the 1919 edition online for free here. 
Picture
The cover of "Practical Cooking and Serving" by Janet McKenzie Hill, 1912 edition, author's library.
A weighty tome of a book, Practical Cooking and Serving is nothing if not practical, and McKenzie Hill is uncommonly good at explaining things. Her section on eggs explains: "Eggs poached in a dish are said to be shirred; when the eggs are basted with melted butter during the cooking, to give them a glossy, shiny appearance, the dish is called au mirroir. Often the eggs are served in the dish in which they are cooked; at other times, especially where several are cooked in the same dish, they are cut with a round paste-cutter and served on croutons, or on a garnish. Eggs are shirred in flat dishes, in cases of china, or paper, or in cocottes. A cocotte is a small earthen saucepan with a handle, standing on three feet." 

Since my baking dishes were neither the flat oval shirring dishes, nor the handled kind, I guess perhaps they are neither shirred nor en cocotte, according to Hill, but we can afford to be less picky about our dishware. 

Hill offered two recipes: one more classic version with breadcrumbs (optional addition of chopped chicken or ham) mixed with cream "to make a batter." The buttered cocotte was lined with the creamy breadcrumbs, the egg cracked on top, with the option to cover with more breadcrumb batter. The whole thing was then baked in a hot water bath "until the egg is set." 

My brunch guest adores mushrooms, and I wanted something a little fancier and more substantial, so I went with Hill's version No. II. 

Eggs en Cocotte with Sauteed Mushrooms (1912)

Picture
Egg in Cocottes, No. II, from "Practical Cooking and Serving," by Janet McKenzie Hill, 1912. Author's library.
Hill's original recipe reads: Sauté a handful of chopped mushrooms with a little onion juice in butter five minutes; add a little chopped parsley, sprinkle the same on the bottom and sides of a buttered shirrer or cocotte, and break the egg into the dish. Sprinkle with the fine herbs and cook as above, basting two or three times with melted butter.

I will admit I didn't follow the directions as closely as I should have - I didn't use hot water in my bain marie (oops), and I didn't baste with butter. So the eggs were cooked a little more solid than I would have like, but still turned out deliciously. Here's my adapted recipe:

1 pint white button mushrooms, minced
2 tablespoons butter
1 clove minced garlic
salt and pepper
2 tablespoons heavy cream
2 tablespoons fresh flat leaf parsley, chopped
4 eggs

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Butter three or four small glass baking dishes. Sauté the mushrooms and garlic in butter, adding salt and pepper to taste. When most of the mushroom liquid has cooked off, add the heavy cream and parsley and stir well. Divide evenly among the baking dishes, make a little well, and then crack eggs into dishes. One or two per dish. Salt and pepper the egg, then place in a 9x13" baking pan with two inches of water (use hot or boiling water). Bake 5-10 minutes, or until the egg white is set and the yolk still runny. For firmer eggs, bake 10-15 mins. 

I did not use boiling water, so the whole thing took more like 20-30 mins for the water to heat up properly, and the yolks got firmer than I would have liked. Tasted delicious, though! This is a very rich dish, so best served with something green and piquant - I chose baby arugula with a sharp homemade vinaigrette (2 tablespoons olive oil, 2 tablespoons lemon juice, 1 tablespoon dijon mustard was enough for 3 or 4 servings of salad), which was just about perfect. 
Picture
The raw eggs in their cocottes, sitting in their water bath and waiting to go into the oven.
You don't have to be a fan of mushrooms to like this dish - white button mushrooms aren't particularly strong-flavored - they just tasted rich and meaty. And despite the fact that eggs en cocotte look and taste incredibly fancy, they were very easy and relatively fast to make. If you were cooking brunch for a crowd, you could certainly prep the mushroom mixture in advance, have the bain marie water on the boil, and make the eggs your last task for a beautiful brunch. With the simple arugula vinaigrette on the side, something sweet and bready (that recipe is coming soon, too) and some fresh fruit and mimosas, you've got yourself a winner. 

Do you have a favorite egg recipe? 
Picture
The whole beautiful brunch spread.

​The Food Historian blog is supported by patrons on Patreon! Patrons help keep blog posts like this one free and available to the public. Join us for awesome members-only content like free digitized cookbooks from my personal collection, e-newsletter, and even snail mail from time to time! Don't like Patreon? You can leave a tip!
Become a Patron!

Tip Jar

$1.00 - $20.00
Support
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Author

    Sarah Wassberg Johnson has an MA in Public History from the University at Albany and studies early 20th century food history.

    Archives

    December 2024
    November 2024
    July 2024
    May 2024
    February 2024
    November 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    May 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    December 2018
    April 2018
    October 2017
    December 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    May 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    December 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015

    Categories

    All
    16th Century
    17th Century
    18th Century
    1910s
    1920s
    1930s
    1940s
    1950s
    19th Century
    20th Century
    31 Days Of Halloween
    Abolitionists
    Abraham Lincoln
    Academia
    Advertising
    African American
    African-American
    Agricultural History Journal
    Agriculture
    Alcohol
    American Expeditionary Forces
    American Red Cross
    American Revolution
    American Southwest
    Apples
    Armenian Genocide
    Armistice
    Asian American
    Autumn
    Avocado
    Baking
    Beverages
    Birthdays
    Black History
    Black History Month
    Book Review
    Bread
    Breakfast
    Breakfast Cereals
    Brunch
    Cake
    Camping
    Candy
    Canning
    Caucasus Mountains
    Celery
    Charcuterie
    Charitable Organizations
    Cheese
    Chilis
    Chinese Food
    Chocolate
    Christmas
    Citrus
    Civil Rights
    Cocktails
    Coffee
    Cold Weather Cooking
    Colonialism
    Columbian Exchange
    Community Cookbooks
    Consomme
    Cookbook Authors
    Cookbook Reviews
    Cookbooks
    Cookies
    Corn
    Cornmeal
    Coronavirus
    Cottage Cheese
    Cranberries
    Dairy
    Deliveries
    Dessert
    Diet Culture
    Dinner And A Movie
    Disgust
    Disney
    Documentary Film
    Economics
    Eggs
    Eleanor Roosevelt
    Election Day
    Elizabeth Trump Walter
    Factory Labor
    Farm Cadets
    Farmerettes
    Farm Labor
    Fast Food
    Florida
    Flowers
    Food Conservation
    Food Distribution Administration
    Food Fads
    Food History
    Food History Books
    Food History Happy Hour
    Food History Roundup
    Food History Stories
    Food Library
    Food Preservation
    Food Waste
    Foraging
    French Dressing
    French Food
    Fruit Punch
    Gardening
    George Washington
    Gingerbread
    Golden Girls
    Grape Nuts
    Greens
    Hal And Edith Fullerton
    Halloween
    Halloween Candy
    Hard Cider
    Heirloom Fruit
    Heirloom Vegetables
    High Cost Of Living
    Historic Cookbooks
    Historic Menus
    History-bites-podcast
    History Channel
    Holiday
    Hollis Pantry Cook Book
    Hollywood
    Home Economics
    Hospitals
    Hot Chocolate
    Hot Cocoa
    Hot Dogs
    How To
    Ice Cream
    Ice Cream Soda
    Ice Deliveries
    Ice Harvest
    Ida Bailey Allen
    Indigenous
    Indigenous People's Day
    Inflation
    Interstate Highways
    Invalid Cookery
    Irish Food
    Italian Food
    Juneteenth
    Kitchen Design
    Kitchens
    Kraft
    Labor
    Laura Ingalls Wilder
    Lecture
    Long Island
    Macaroni And Cheese
    Meat
    Meatless Mondays
    Medieval
    Melon
    Mexican
    Mexican Food
    Midnight Suppers
    Midsummer
    Midwestern
    Military
    Milk
    Milkshakes
    Minnesota
    Mythbusting
    National War Garden Commission
    Native Foods
    Navy
    Necco
    New England
    New Year's Eve
    New Year's Resolutions
    New York State Food Supply Commission
    Normalcy
    North American
    North Dakota
    Norwegian
    Nutrition History
    NYU
    Office Of Price Administration
    Open Faced Sandwiches
    Open-faced Sandwiches
    Parades
    Parties
    Patreon Perks
    Peanut Butter
    Peanuts
    Pesticides
    Peter Pauper Press
    Picnics
    Pie
    Podcasts
    Political Cartoon
    Polynesia
    Pop Culture
    Pork
    Potatoes
    Preserve Or Perish
    President's Day
    Prohibition
    Propaganda
    Propaganda Film
    Propaganda Poster
    Public Health
    Pumpkin
    Pumpkin Pie
    Pumpkin Spice
    Punch
    Pure Food And Drug Act
    Queen Victoria
    Quick Breads
    Racism
    Radio
    Rationing
    Recipes
    Refrigeration
    Research
    Restaurants
    Rhubarb
    Rice
    Riots
    Road Food
    Root Beer
    Salad Dressing
    Salads
    Sandwiches
    Sankta Lucias Dag
    Saratoga Chips
    Sauces
    Scandinavian
    School Gardens
    School Lunch
    Shopping
    Slavery
    Smorgasbord
    Soda
    Soda Bread
    Soda Fountains
    Soup
    South American
    Soviet
    Spanish Flu
    Speaking Engagement
    Special Offer
    Spice Islands
    Spices
    Spring
    Sugar
    Summer
    Swedish
    Tea
    Tea Party
    Temperance
    Thanksgiving
    Theodore Roosevelt
    Tomatoes
    Trick Or Treat
    Trump
    Ukraine
    United States Food Administration
    United States School Garden Army
    USDA
    Valentine's Day
    Vegan
    Vegetarian
    Victory Garden
    Vitamins
    Warren G. Harding
    Waste Fats
    Wedding Cake
    Weddings
    White Chocolate
    White Christmas
    Wild Rice
    Wine
    Winter
    Woman's Land Army
    Women Of Color
    Women's History
    Women's Suffrage
    Woodrow Wilson
    World War I
    World War II
    World War Wednesdays
    Writing
    WWII
    Year In Review
    Zimmerman Telegram

    RSS Feed

Home
About
Blog
Resources
Events
Contact
The Food Historian is an Amazon.com and Bookshop.org affiliate. That means that if you purchase anything from any Amazon or Bookshop links on this website, or from the Food Historian Bookshop, you are helping to support The Food Historian and keep this website free and open to the public. Thank you!
  • Home
  • About
    • Contact >
      • Media Requests
      • Submissions
    • In the Media
    • Speaking Engagements
    • Consulting
    • Leave a Tip
  • Projects
    • Blog
    • Book
    • Historical Supper Club
    • Newsletter
    • Food History Happy Hour
    • Book Reviews
    • Podcast
  • Resources
    • Food Historian Bookshop
    • Recorded Talks
    • Historic Cookbooks
    • Vintage Cookbooks
    • Bibliography
    • Food Exhibits
    • TV and Film
    • Food Historian Library
    • Printable Newsletters
    • Thesis
    • Other Publications
  • Events