Eggs à l'Orléanaise

History

Œufs à la d'Orléans is a poached-or-soft-boiled egg preparation codified by Auguste Escoffier in Le Guide Culinaire (first published 1903). In Escoffier's own formula the dish is built from tartlet cases filled with a salpicon of white chicken meat bound with tomato sauce; the eggs are coated with Béchamel finished with pistachio butter (150 g of the butter per half-litre of sauce) and set on the filled tartlets. The published English rendering keeps the same construction and files it among the poached/soft-boiled egg dishes.

This dish belongs to Escoffier's professional restaurant repertoire of around 1900, not to any royal or Ancien Régime court kitchen. The name follows the classical French "à la ___" garnish-naming convention used throughout Le Guide Culinaire; a garnish name is not evidence of who ate the dish.

Beyond what appears in Escoffier's text, the historical record I could open does not document who created this preparation, who ate it, any origin story or place, or any social meaning attached to it. In particular, nothing sourced supports the idea that its pistachio component signalled wealth or marked status — that framing is not documented for this recipe and is not carried forward here.

Ingredients

• eggs
• tartlet shells (croûtes de tartelettes)
• white poultry meat (blanc de volaille)
• tomato sauce (sauce Tomate)
• 150 grams pistachio butter (beurre de pistaches)
• 500 ml béchamel sauce (sauce Béchamel)

Instructions

1. Poach or soft-boil the eggs.
2. Prepare tartlet shells by filling them with a fine dice of white poultry meat bound with tomato sauce.
3. Finish the béchamel sauce (mother sauce) by whisking in pistachio butter at a ratio of 150 grams butter per 500 ml of sauce.
4. Coat each egg with this pistachio-béchamel.
5. Arrange the coated eggs on the filled tartlet shells and serve.