Digging Through Old Cook Books Again
Ox-Eyes, Gold Medal Flour Cookbook, 1910
6 Eggs
6 tablespoons cream
6 inch thick slices of bread
4 tablespoons butter
salt and pepper.
(You can substitute light cream and margarine if you like, but what the hell? Go for broke.)
With a three inch cutter, cut bread into rounds. Cut a small ring one and one half inch in diameter and take out enough crumb to replace with egg; brush with melted butter and brown in a quick oven. Moisten each with 1 tablespoon of cream; break a fresh egg into each, season with salt and pepper and cook in moderate oven until white is set.
Though this is an old standby Girl Scout recipe "Eggs in a Hole", I like "Ox Eyes" better, bwahaha.
This is the first time I've seen the recipe in a cook book, it's in the 1910 Gold Medal Flour Cook Book. This book is aimed squarely at the experienced middle class American housewife, the sort of woman who already knew how to cook, and who knew to save things like "sediments" (the water from cooked vegetables) for other meals.
Most if not all of the recipes are time honored and tested, they're not terribly fancy, they're filling and solid. Most are easy to make. This book lacks the personality of the author, the recipes are lifted from other sources and are re-written in plain terms without opinion. Something a harassed housewife of the era could appreciate, she bloody well knew how to bake a loaf of bread, and she knew how her own particular stove worked.
The book is an advertisement by the flour company, and this one came with a hole punched in the corner so it could be hung on a hook in the kitchen for easy access. This also served to keep the name of the flour at eye level.
You'd find three sorts of these advertising books, incidentally. One, which featured fancy, elegant recipes, often specially written for the advertisers by well known cooks (the writers of the White House Cook Book, for instance, wrote for Fleischer's Yeast); two, were specifically written for young, inexperienced brides, often by home economics specialists, and generally had at least tips on marketing if nothing else; and three, books like this for the established matron who just needed some good, fast ideas for meals.
Anyway! The recipe is very simple, but will not come out well if you use a typical sandwich type of bread. If you don't bake your own, buy day old and have it cut into one inch slices. Day old is better for toasting.
This would be a 'treat' or special dish because it requires that you rake up your coals and damp them to regulate the heat. A bit of a pain in the ass.
First you need that 'quick' oven (which is about 400-450), that will brown a piece of paper in one minute. Or, toss the bread into a toaster and then cut out the rounds, then brush on the melted butter. If you use the oven, brush on the melted butter, cut out the rounds, place the bread on a grill, not a cookie sheet, it won't toast properly. At 450, it will only take a few moments to get them nice and toasted.
Either way, while you're at it, toast another six pieces of bread and keep them warm, or toast the cuttings from the rounds and keep them warm. Or both, some people like a lot of toast. Those you can toast and then butter later. Just put them in a dish lined with a cloth napkin and leave on top of the stove to stay warm.
I've known people who never used a toaster, or had, and thought it was too much of a pain in the ass, and always used the oven. It does take a light touch and quick moves, especially if you use a chain brand sandwich bread. One minute's inattention, and it's totally charcoal.
Remember, the toast is intended to be brown. Nice brown, not light. That's where the day old bread is helpful, it's much less soft and squishy than fresh, and there's Science for it but I don't remember it.
Now place your toasted rounds onto a cookie sheet (I'd line it with foil, personally, and give it a spray of Pam), and add the cream. You can use a brush to spread the cream, or just drizzle it from the spoon around the toast round, start inside and work around.
Weights and Measures were still standardizing in 1910, though Fanny Farmer's cookbook gave very clear measures, most people used their handy utensils and estimated based on those. So that tablespoon was probably on the large side, considering this was for an experienced cook with a family to feed.
The cream serves to keep the bread 'glued' to the pan and not let the egg slide all over, plus keeps the bread from burning while the egg cooks.
Fresh eggs, yes, if you can get them. They'll taste better, and do more Science things with the bread and cream, bonding it all together in deliciousness. Scientific deliciousness.
Now, if you are using a wood or coal fired stove, you will need to adjust your dampers after you pull out the toast. You need the oven to cool to about 300-350. You could get thermostats for your oven back then, but mainly, you'd just been cooking on it so long (in theory) you knew how to adjust it to the temperature you needed just by the look and feel of the fire.
The flame is not under the oven, its usually to the side, and under part of the stove top. Dampers are used to regulate the flow of hot hair around the oven box, so though it was some trouble, it wasn't impossible to get the oven to cool down to 'moderate' within an hour or so. Or less, depending. Also, the oven had (and they still do) their "hot" and "cool" spots, which an experience cook would know.
So now you add some salt and pepper (go easy on the salt, American butter is salted already), then pop the ox-eyes into the oven and bake 'until the whites are set'. Which would probably be about five-ten minutes, depending.
To serve, you spatula them up onto the plate, use a sharp edged one because if you flinch, you're going to have a mess. It will still taste fine, though. Now arrange the toast you made earlier with the ox-eyes, you can cut them into points or halves or whatever.
Then add whatever else you have for breakfast and bring it out to tell the kids "Ox eyes for brekky!" and enjoy the howls of "EUUUW!"
http://archive.org/stream/goldmedalflour00washrich#page/34/mode/2up
6 Eggs
6 tablespoons cream
6 inch thick slices of bread
4 tablespoons butter
salt and pepper.
(You can substitute light cream and margarine if you like, but what the hell? Go for broke.)
With a three inch cutter, cut bread into rounds. Cut a small ring one and one half inch in diameter and take out enough crumb to replace with egg; brush with melted butter and brown in a quick oven. Moisten each with 1 tablespoon of cream; break a fresh egg into each, season with salt and pepper and cook in moderate oven until white is set.
Though this is an old standby Girl Scout recipe "Eggs in a Hole", I like "Ox Eyes" better, bwahaha.
This is the first time I've seen the recipe in a cook book, it's in the 1910 Gold Medal Flour Cook Book. This book is aimed squarely at the experienced middle class American housewife, the sort of woman who already knew how to cook, and who knew to save things like "sediments" (the water from cooked vegetables) for other meals.
Most if not all of the recipes are time honored and tested, they're not terribly fancy, they're filling and solid. Most are easy to make. This book lacks the personality of the author, the recipes are lifted from other sources and are re-written in plain terms without opinion. Something a harassed housewife of the era could appreciate, she bloody well knew how to bake a loaf of bread, and she knew how her own particular stove worked.
The book is an advertisement by the flour company, and this one came with a hole punched in the corner so it could be hung on a hook in the kitchen for easy access. This also served to keep the name of the flour at eye level.
You'd find three sorts of these advertising books, incidentally. One, which featured fancy, elegant recipes, often specially written for the advertisers by well known cooks (the writers of the White House Cook Book, for instance, wrote for Fleischer's Yeast); two, were specifically written for young, inexperienced brides, often by home economics specialists, and generally had at least tips on marketing if nothing else; and three, books like this for the established matron who just needed some good, fast ideas for meals.
Anyway! The recipe is very simple, but will not come out well if you use a typical sandwich type of bread. If you don't bake your own, buy day old and have it cut into one inch slices. Day old is better for toasting.
This would be a 'treat' or special dish because it requires that you rake up your coals and damp them to regulate the heat. A bit of a pain in the ass.
First you need that 'quick' oven (which is about 400-450), that will brown a piece of paper in one minute. Or, toss the bread into a toaster and then cut out the rounds, then brush on the melted butter. If you use the oven, brush on the melted butter, cut out the rounds, place the bread on a grill, not a cookie sheet, it won't toast properly. At 450, it will only take a few moments to get them nice and toasted.
Either way, while you're at it, toast another six pieces of bread and keep them warm, or toast the cuttings from the rounds and keep them warm. Or both, some people like a lot of toast. Those you can toast and then butter later. Just put them in a dish lined with a cloth napkin and leave on top of the stove to stay warm.
I've known people who never used a toaster, or had, and thought it was too much of a pain in the ass, and always used the oven. It does take a light touch and quick moves, especially if you use a chain brand sandwich bread. One minute's inattention, and it's totally charcoal.
Remember, the toast is intended to be brown. Nice brown, not light. That's where the day old bread is helpful, it's much less soft and squishy than fresh, and there's Science for it but I don't remember it.
Now place your toasted rounds onto a cookie sheet (I'd line it with foil, personally, and give it a spray of Pam), and add the cream. You can use a brush to spread the cream, or just drizzle it from the spoon around the toast round, start inside and work around.
Weights and Measures were still standardizing in 1910, though Fanny Farmer's cookbook gave very clear measures, most people used their handy utensils and estimated based on those. So that tablespoon was probably on the large side, considering this was for an experienced cook with a family to feed.
The cream serves to keep the bread 'glued' to the pan and not let the egg slide all over, plus keeps the bread from burning while the egg cooks.
Fresh eggs, yes, if you can get them. They'll taste better, and do more Science things with the bread and cream, bonding it all together in deliciousness. Scientific deliciousness.
Now, if you are using a wood or coal fired stove, you will need to adjust your dampers after you pull out the toast. You need the oven to cool to about 300-350. You could get thermostats for your oven back then, but mainly, you'd just been cooking on it so long (in theory) you knew how to adjust it to the temperature you needed just by the look and feel of the fire.
The flame is not under the oven, its usually to the side, and under part of the stove top. Dampers are used to regulate the flow of hot hair around the oven box, so though it was some trouble, it wasn't impossible to get the oven to cool down to 'moderate' within an hour or so. Or less, depending. Also, the oven had (and they still do) their "hot" and "cool" spots, which an experience cook would know.
So now you add some salt and pepper (go easy on the salt, American butter is salted already), then pop the ox-eyes into the oven and bake 'until the whites are set'. Which would probably be about five-ten minutes, depending.
To serve, you spatula them up onto the plate, use a sharp edged one because if you flinch, you're going to have a mess. It will still taste fine, though. Now arrange the toast you made earlier with the ox-eyes, you can cut them into points or halves or whatever.
Then add whatever else you have for breakfast and bring it out to tell the kids "Ox eyes for brekky!" and enjoy the howls of "EUUUW!"
http://archive.org/stream/goldmedalflour00washrich#page/34/mode/2up