MANY people do not know a well-boiled egg by sight or taste, yet a fresh egg, boiled to a nicety, is one of the simplest, most nutritious of breakfast dishes.

Boiled Eggs.

Select the cleanest eggs, wash them well, and lay them in lukewarm water for five minutes. Have ready on the fire a saucepan of water on a fast boil, and in quantity sufficient to cover the eggs entirely. Into this put one egg at a time with a spoon, depositing each gently on the bottom, and quickly.

Four minutes boils an egg thoroughly, if one likes the white set and the yolk heated to the centre. Five minutes makes the white firm and sets the yolk. Ten minutes boils both hard.

Take up the eggs with a split spoon or wire whisk. If you have no regular egg dish, lay a heated napkin in a deep dish or bowl (also warmed), put in the eggs as in a nest, cover up with the corners of the napkin, and send directly to the table. They harden in the shells if left long without being broken.

The best way to manage a boiled egg at the table is the English way of setting it upright in the small end of the egg-cup, making a hole in the top large enough to admit the egg-spoon, and eating it from the shell, seasoning as you go on. Heat and taste are undoubtedly better preserved by this method than by any other. Those who cannot afford gold-washed spoons, can procure pretty ivory ones at a trifling cost, or small teaspoons will serve the purpose.

Spoons smeared with eggs should be laid to soak in cold water directly you have finished using them.

Custard Eggs.

Put the washed eggs in a saucepan of cold water and let them just come to a boil, then take them up.

Or, lay them in a hot tin pail, cover them with boiling water, put the top on the pail and leave them on the kitchen table for five minutes. Drain off the water, pour on more boiling hot and replace the top. Wrap a hot towel about the pail, and leave it four minutes before dishing the eggs. They will be like a soft custard throughout, and more digestible than if cooked in any other way.

Poached, or Dropped Eggs.

Into a clean frying-pan, pour plenty of boiling water, and a teaspoonful of salt. Let it boil steadily, not violently. Wipe a cup dry, break an egg into it, and pour, very cautiously and quickly, on the surface of the water. Avoid spreading or breaking it. It will sink to the bottom for an instant, but if the water is boiling hot, will rise soon and be cooked in about three and a half minutes. Do not put more than three into the pan at one time, or they will run into one another.

Take them up with a perforated skimmer and lay on a hot, flat dish in which a teaspoonful of butter has been melted. If the whites have ragged edges, trim neatly with a sharp knife. When all are done, pepper and salt lightly, put a bit of butter on each egg and send up very hot.

Eggs on Toast.

Cut out with a sharp-edged tumbler or a cake cutter as many round slices of stale bread as there are eggs to be cooked. Toast these nicely, butter thinly; cover the bottom of a heated dish with them, and pour on each a tablespoonful of boiling water. Set in the plate-warmer or an open oven while you poach eggs as directed in the last receipt.

Lay each when done on a round of toast, pepper, salt and butter, and serve.

Eggs on Savory Toast.

Toast rounds of stale bread as directed in preceding receipt, but instead of moistening them with hot water, pour upon them, as they lie in the dish, two tablespoonfuls of boiling gravy to each slice. A half-cupful of gravy left over from yesterday’s roast or stew skimmed free of fat, heated, thinned with a very little boiling water, well-seasoned, then strained and boiled up quickly, makes this a tempting dish.

Poach as many eggs as you have rounds of toast, and lay on these, with pepper, salt and bits of butter.

Scrambled or Stirred Eggs.

Break the eggs altogether in a bowl. Put the butter in a clean frying-pan and set it on the range. As it melts, add pepper, salt and parsley. When it hisses, pour in the eggs, and begin at once to stir them, scraping the bottom of the pan from the sides toward the centre, until you have a soft, moist mass just firm enough not to run over the bottom of the heated dish on which you turn it out. Make it into a neat mound. Some people prefer it without the parsley.

In serving everything, be careful that the rims of the dishes are perfectly clean. The effect of the most delicious viand is spoiled by drops or smears of food on the vessel containing it.

If you heap your scrambled eggs on a platter and lay parsley-sprigs around, making a green fringe or border for the yellow hillock, you have an elegant dish. Study to make plain things pretty when you can.

Bacon and Eggs.

Fry as many slices of ham, or what is known as breakfast-bacon, as there are eggs to be cooked. Have the clean frying-pan warm, but not hot, when the meat goes in. Turn the slices as they brown. When done, take the pan over to the sink or table, remove the meat to a hot dish and set where it will keep warm.

Strain the grease left in the pan through a bit of tarlatan or coarse muslin into a cup. Wipe the frying-pan clean, pour in the strained fat and return to the fire. If there is not enough to cover the bottom a quarter of an inch deep, add a tablespoonful of butter. Break the eggs one at a time in a cup, and when the fat hisses put them in carefully.

Few people like “turned” fried eggs. Slip a cake-turner or spatula under each as it cooks to keep it from sticking. They should be done in about three minutes. Do not put in more at once than can swim in the fat without interfering with one another.

Take up as fast as they cook, trim off ragged and rusty edges and lay on a hot platter. Drain each to get rid of the fat, as you take it out of the pan.

When all are dished, lay the ham or bacon neatly about the eggs like a garnish. Pepper all lightly. Ham for this purpose should be cut in small narrow slices.

Drop sprays of parsley on the rim of the dish.

Baked Eggs.

Put a tablespoonful of butter in a pie-plate, and set in the oven until it melts and begins to smoke. Take it to the table and break six eggs one by one into a cup, pouring each in turn into the melted butter carefully. Sprinkle with pepper and salt, put a tiny bit of butter on each and set in the oven to bake until the eggs are “set”—that is, when the whites are firm and the yolks skimmed over, but not hard. Four minutes in a quick oven should do this. Send to table at once.

If you have a few spoonfuls of nice chicken gravy, you can strain and use it instead of butter.

Scalloped Eggs.

Six eggs.

Half a cupful of nice gravy skimmed and strained. Chicken, turkey, game and veal gravy are especially good for this purpose. Clear soup may also be used.

Half a cupful of pounded cracker or fine dry bread-crumbs.

Pepper and salt.