Stuffed Eggs, part 1 -- another recipe from the Transylvanian cookbook

It is time to pick a recipe from the Transylvanian Prince's Cookbook!

This is the digital translation of a book in Hungarian that I have tried recipes from before.  Here is the book reference:

The Prince of Transylvania’s court cookbook 

From the 16th century 

THE SCIENCE OF COOKING

You can find a copy of it here:  http://www.medievalcookery.com/etexts/transylvania-v2.pdf

The recipes I have tried are here:  Prince of Transylvania's court cookbook

Today I picked out three recipes, and I picked three because of how similar they are.  The first and second look pretty straightforward.  I considered the third and decided I really didn't want to try that, at least not for my first attempt.

Stuffed Eggs

(532) Stuffed eggs. Poke a hole into the eggs, blow out the insides, fry it and slice it, stuff it with honey, black pepper, currants, saffron and cinnamon, then put it on a thin skewer, roast it far from the coal, then serve it.

(599) Egg stuffed in shell. Put twelve eggs on a plate, poke a hole in them, blow out the white and the yolk. Once blown out, add black pepper, saffron and salt, put them into butter and cook it, cut it with a knife, whip two raw eggs, add sugar, small grapes and some parsley. Then pour it back into the egg shell. Make a skewer, put the eggs on it, and roast them.

(601) Stuffed egg white. Wash the egg, boil it, once boiling, pour the hot water down and add some cold water. Poke the end, blow out the yolk onto a pot, leave the whites inside. Cook the yolk like scrambled eggs, add sugar, saffron, black pepper, salt and small grapes. Put some parsley and whip some eggs into it, stuff it into the shell, boil it again in water, once boiled, take down the shell, only the white will be stuffed. Put it on a skewer and roast it; you can make any sauce.

I loved the idea behind all of these recipes:  They are creating a "sotelty", an illusion food.  What is served might look like a hard-cooked egg, but when you crack it open, you get a surprise.

I think it is worth a try!

My redaction for the first recipe:

4 eggs
butter for cooking the eggs
1 1/2 to 2 tsp honey
1/8 tsp black pepper
1/4 to 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tablespoon dried currants
a pinch of saffron

I warmed the honey so it would be liquid.

First, preheat the oven to 225 degrees F.

Preparing the eggs

I took a small appetizer fork that has very sharp points and used it to poke a big hole (about 1 cm diameter) in the blunt end of each egg.  I had to poke some tiny holes first, then the shell started cracking and I was able to pick out bits of shell until the opening was big enough and somewhat round.  Then I poked a very small hole on the pointy end of the egg.

Big hole, with little in the back.

Little hole, just bigger than the skewer diameter

Holding the big opening over a bowl, I blew on the small hole until the yolk and white left the shell.  Then I wiped down the shell.

I think it is inevitable that some tiny bits of shell will get into the whites/yolk, but I was able to pick out most of them before I beat it with a fork until they were well scrambled.

The cooking part

I melted some butter in a pan and gently cooked the eggs.  I intentionally undercooked them so they would be very moist.  I wanted my final mixture to still need cooking once the shells were stuffed.

Moist eggs

I used the fork to break up the eggs and to mix in the spices, currants, and honey.  I added the honey last and tasted the mixture several times until I thought it was lightly spiced and moist enough.

With all the ingredients, and broken up with the fork into small pieces

To stuff the shells, I used the tines of the fork to scoop up the egg mixture and place it over the hole.  Then I used the flat of the fork to gently push the stuffing into the hole.  Sometimes I used the appetizer fork to push the stuffing down once it was inside the shell.

Don't worry about the mess on the shell, it will clean up.

When I felt I couldn't put in any more stuffing, I first wiped the shell with a damp cloth, then dried it with another cloth.

Each stuffed egg felt heavier than they were before they were blown.  Also, the amount of stuffing was just right:  I had just a little left over in the pan once I was through.  I put in effort to compact the stuffing while I was putting it in.

Four stuffed eggs, all clean and pretty!

The baking part

The recipe called for putting the eggs on a skewer, which I assumed would be necessary for roasting eggs over coals.  While I was stuffing the eggs (it took a while), I decided that the skewer would make a fun visual effect for serving, so I put two eggs on one skewer.  Be sure to put the tip of the skewer into the small hole first, so that it is easy to find the big hole as the skewer exits the stuffing.

I think this looks neat!

I put the eggs on a tray and baked them for 20 minutes.




The Verdict

I served them as they were, right out of the oven.

It took a little experimenting, but we found the best way (I thought) to eat them was to crack them in the middle with the edge of the spoon, which allowed the eggs to be broken in half by hand.  Then we used the spoon to scoop out the stuffing from each half.  The first attempt (see the pictures) was to peel the eggs like a hard-cooked egg and then scoop, but that made a big mess of shell.  It was too easy to eat some shell in the process.

We cracked the shell with the bowl of the spoon, or tapped it on the plate.

Peeling away the shell.

Ready to eat!

I did not tell my guest tasters what was in the stuffing.  I challenged them to tell me what they tasted.  

One was certain the stuffing was mostly rice, with some spices and currents.  He wasn't impressed with it and thought it needed salt.  He did salt several bites and said that improved the flavor.  In the end, he said it wasn't bad but he didn't think it was exciting.

The other two guests thought the stuffing was mostly oatmeal.  Once they knew it was egg, they decided they thought it was oatmeal because it had the sorts of flavors they associate with it (honey, cinnamon, currants or raisins).  They said there was enough blandness that it seemed like oatmeal.  

However, they liked it and were intrigued with the technique.  We discussed ways to make the stuffing more appealing, and agreed it needs a bit of salt and more spice to really bump up the flavor.

Success!  I want to do it again with those improvements.

There are some things I would do differently.  I wish that I had taken the scrambled eggs out of the pan before mixing in the other ingredients.  I think the eggs cooked more than I wanted from the residual heat in the pan, and I wasn't happy about that.  Perhaps the result would have been more flavorful on its own.  I also think I would mix the saffron into the uncooked eggs so it could flavor them better while they cooked.

While preparing the stuffing, I thought a lot about the purpose of baking the eggs.  I decided it was to heat them all the way through, and perhaps to get the stuffing firmed up in the shell.  That is why I picked a low temperature (slow heating to get through to the center) and left them in there for 20 minutes.  I think it was a good choice.  The stuffing was very warm completely into the center.  

We had a good conversation about other stuffings to make.  The idea I liked best was to mix the uncooked beaten eggs with a little salt, tiny bits of cooked bacon or sausage, and some herbs or spices or chives or green onion.  After plugging the tiny hole with a bit of cheese, pour the egg mixture back into the shell.  Bake it to serve an omelet in its shell!

Tune in tomorrow to read about my second attempt at stuffed eggs.