Eggs Mireille

History

Œufs Mireille (Eggs Mireille) is a poached- or soft-boiled-egg dish codified by Auguste Escoffier in Le Guide Culinaire, his first cookbook, published in French in 1903 and issued in an abridged English translation in 1907 as A Guide to Modern Cookery. In Escoffier's own formula the eggs are set on oil-fried toasts within a crown of saffron pilaf-rice tartlets (tartelettes de riz pilaw safrané), coated in a saffron cream sauce, and each tartlet is finished with a small bouquet of buttered crushed tomatoes. That printed recipe is the primary evidence of the dish, and of Escoffier having named it.

The name Mireille is that of the heroine of Frédéric Mistral's 1859 Provençal poem Mirèio, a work in Occitan/Provençal telling of the thwarted love of Vincent and Mireille. The dish's saffron-and-tomato, Provençal-flavoured character is consistent with that association, but no source I opened records Escoffier's stated reason for the name.

Beyond Escoffier's printed recipe, the historical record I could source does not document who devised the dish, where or when it was first served, who ate it, or that it ever signalled wealth or status. There is no documented lineage for it.

Ingredients

• eggs
• saffron pilaw rice
• bread
• cream sauce with saffron
• tomatoes
• butter

Instructions

1. Prepare tartlets of saffron pilaw rice and arrange them in a crown on a serving platter, alternating with toast shapes of the same form fried in oil.
2. Coat the poached or soft-boiled eggs with sauce Crème au safran (cream sauce with saffron) and place them on the toasts.
3. On each tartlet, arrange a small bouquet of crushed tomatoes that have been softened in butter, compressed slightly.