HISTORY AND COOKERY 59 



Baked Asparagus 'with Eggs 



Boil a bundle of twenty to thirty heads of asparagus, 

 and, having well drained it, cut it into small pieces about 

 a quarter or a half of an inch in length. Put the asparagus 

 with an ounce and a half of butter and a little pepper 

 and salt into a stewpan. Heat the mixture and pour it 

 into a buttered baking dish. Beat six eggs and mix 

 them with a little salt and pepper and an ounce of 

 butter, stirring in also an ounce and a half of cream or 

 rich milk. Pour this mixture over the asparagus in the 

 baking dish, and place in the oven until the eggs are 

 cooked. A much simpler way, though one by no means 

 so satisfactory, is to place the cooked asparagus into a 

 buttered baking dish, break the eggs on top, and cook 

 until the eggs are set. Mrs Marion Harland, in her 

 "Common Sense in the Household," published in New 

 York in 1885, strongly recommends a dish which she 

 calls " Asparagus in Ambush," but this is simply the 

 " Asparagus forced in French Rolls " of Mrs Glasse 

 and her numerous copiers (one finds her recipe reported 

 almost verbatim in Henderson's " Housekeeper's In- 

 structor" and the other popular cookery books of the 

 same period), which, though a pleasant enough dish, 

 represents an act of sacrilege against so subtle a thing 

 as asparagus. It consists in cutting off the tops and 

 scraping out the crumb from some stale rolls, setting 

 them in the oven till crisp, filling them with the follow- 

 ing mixture, replacing the top, and setting again in the 

 oven for three minutes, the rolls to be eaten whilst hot. 

 The mixture is made by boiling a pint of milk and 

 beating into it four whipped eggs, stirring over the fire 

 till it thickens, when should be added a great spoonful 

 of butter, a little pepper and salt, and the tender tops of 

 fifty heads of asparagus, cooked and minced. Directly 



