eggs golden rodomontade

Fannie Farmer* published her Boston Cooking School Cook Book in 1896 that contained over 1800 recipes, as well as essays on housekeeping, cleaning, preserving fruits and vegetables, and nutritional information. It is still available via Amazon.com.

Among her recipes is a relatively simple breakfast dish of hard boiled eggs in Bechamel† sauce, with the yolks grated and sprinkled over the top, served over toast points, called “eggs ŕ la goldenrod.” Attesting to its popularity in early twentieth-century homes, one (unremembered) food critic remarked, “Everyone has a recipe for it.” But its popularity has since waned and there are many in the younger generation today that have never heard of it.

The first time I ate it, about 1969 after an Easter Egg Hunt, I thought, this is pretty good, but nothing to brag about. But its name and something about it stuck in my mind. I decided to embellish a little it in a way that one could then brag about it. Hence the title.

  • 6 hard boiled eggs, peeled and separated
  • 1 package white sauce mix, such as Knorr’s, made with fat free half and half cream
  • pinch nutmeg
  • pinch ground cayenne chile
  • ½ tsp garlic powder
  • ¼ tsp white pepper
  • ¼ cup sherry
  • 3 tbsp lite oleo, such as Smart Balance® or Brummell and Brown®
  • 6 large shiitake or portabella mushrooms
  • 3 English muffins, halved and toasted
  • 3 beefsteak tomatoes, sliced
  • 6 sprigs of parsley, or chop it up
  • <salt> to taste

Peel boiled eggs and separate whites from yolks. Dice the whites into little bite-sized chunks. Grate the yolks into a separate container for later use.

Assemble the packaged white sauce mix, nutmeg, cayenne, white pepper, and garlic. Stir these together until uniformly mixed. Make the white sauce according to package directions, but use fat-free half and half cream as the liquid. The amount of half and half will vary with the packaged white sauce, but the idea is that the finished sauce will coat a spoon when the sherry is added later.

Melt the oleo and sauté the mushrooms (large shiitakes are best) until slightly browned.

Add the chopped egg whites to the white sauce, add the sherry, and simmer about 5 minutes.

Toast the English muffins and put them on serving plates. Cover each half with mushrooms apportioned among them. Slather on the egg whites and sauce, and then top with the grated egg yolk.

Garnish the plate with sliced beefsteak tomatoes and parsley.

A glass of chilled chardonnay accompanies this dish very well.

Now that’s something worth rodomontading* about.