Moulded Eggs à la Mortemart

Œufs moulés à la Mortemart (moulded eggs on mushroom tartlets) teach one true thing: softness survives a second cooking only when the first cooking stops while the eggs still look almost too loose. Five eggs become tender curds, three more go in raw to form a custard around them, and a bain-marie (hot-water bath) sets the mixture gently over a fine coin of truffle.

The source assumed a pastry station for the tartlet crusts, a saucier on staff to keep Purée de Champignons (No. 2079) and meat glaze ready, and a stockpot never off the fire. At home, fully baked all-butter tartlet shells replace the pastry-station labor, the mushroom purée arrives as its own finished preparation, and low-salt veal demi-glace is reduced and mounted with butter to supply the meat glaze. The source's eight eggs already make four generous first-course servings, two timbales each. The separate stations are scaffolding and go; the soft scramble, three raw eggs, truffle-lined moulds, and gentle poach are the dish and stay. One cook, one stove, one evening.

The first scramble decides everything. Stop while the curds are tender, glossy, and loose enough to flow from the pan; cook them to breakfast firmness now and the second cooking will turn them spongy. Keep your nerve and pull them early.