Egg Fours

Ingredients

• hard-boiled eggs
• sardines
• salt
• pepper
• lemon juice or vinegar
• olive oil
• minced olives
• pimento strips
• grated cheese
• made mustard
• sour cucumber pickle
• toast strips

Instructions

1. Cut hard-boiled eggs in four lengthwise.
2. Mix the yolks with an equal bulk of sardines, drained, freed of skin and bone, and minced fine.
3. Season with salt, pepper, lemon juice, or vinegar, and olive oil. Add minced olives if you like.
4. The mixture must be soft, but not too soft to shape well.
5. Shape it into small ovals, using two spoons, and lay an oval in each quarter of the whites.
6. Put very narrow strips of pimento on the ovals, then sprinkle them thickly with grated cheese — Edam is good for such use.
7. Set in a baking dish and cook two to four minutes in a hot oven.
8. If wanted extra tasty, as for a relish before dinner, set the fours on narrow strips of toast spread with made mustard, well-mixed with finely minced very sour cucumber pickle.
9. Bacon sliced thin, fried crisp without scorching, and finely minced can take the place of sardines.
10. Flavors and proportions can be varied widely: onion, even a suspicion of garlic, tabasco, Cayenne vinegar, walnut catsup, or Worcester can be added. Capers mixed through the mass make it wonderfully piquant.
11. Leave out things which need to be crisply fresh, such as celery and lettuce.