Oeufs Jeanette-Inspired Egg Toasts Recipe

Drawing inspiration from two classic dishes from opposite sides of the world, these crisp, seared-egg-topped toasts seek to bring a new form to the Jacques Pépin classic, les oeufs Jeannette, by transforming it into something that looks a lot like shrimp toast (but without any actual shrimp). Shrimp toasts are thought to have originated in either Hong Kong or Southern China — there's some debate on the matter — whereas oeufs Jeannette were a common dinner in the Pépin household in Bourg-en-Bresse, France, near Lyon, when Jacques was a child.

Oeufs Jeannette involves searing hard-boiled eggs stuffed with a garlicky filling and then drizzling them with a mustard sauce, a novel technique that was likely invented by Jacques' mother, Jeannette. It was, of course, Jacques Pépin who named the dish and brought it to its current place of fame. Shrimp toast, on the other hand, is a dish full of Asian flavor, featuring a mixture of minced shrimp, eggs, aromatics, spices, and sauces spread on a piece of bread and fried crisp.

Combined, we have these lovely oeufs Jeannette-inspired egg toasts (or tartines, whichever you prefer) from recipe developer A.J. Forget. Featuring an egg salad imbued with garlic, parsley, and Dijon mustard spread onto neat triangles of buttery fried bread, these egg toasts showcase yet another novel technique to turn hard-boiled eggs into a delightful meal.

For this recipe you will need hard-boiled eggs, garlic, parsley, salt, pepper, Dijon mustard, mayonnaise, olive oil, white wine vinegar, white sandwich bread, and butter. Once you have these ingredients together, you are ready to start cooking.

Separate the yolks from the whites of the hard-boiled eggs.

Finely dice the egg whites.

Mash the egg yolks in a bowl. Mix 1 tablespoon mayonnaise and 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard into the mashed egg yolks along with the garlic, parsley, salt, and pepper.

Remove 1 tablespoon of the egg mixture to a small bowl, and mix it together with the olive oil and white wine vinegar to make a vinaigrette.

Add 1 tablespoon of mayonnaise and 2 teaspoons of Dijon mustard to the bowl with the remaining egg yolk mixture, and stir in the egg whites, making an egg salad.

Cut the crusts off of the sandwich bread and slice them diagonally to make triangles.

Spread the egg salad onto the bread triangles.

Bring a skillet to medium heat and add ½ tablespoon of butter.

In batches, toast the bottoms of the bread triangles for around 2 minutes, or until brown and crisp. Add more butter as needed during this process.

Once all of the bread triangles are toasted, add remaining butter to the skillet and cook the toasts egg-side-down in batches for around 3-4 minutes, or until nicely browned.

Drizzle the egg toasts with the vinaigrette, sprinkle with additional minced parsley if desired, and serve.

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With this recipe, we sought to stay true to the flavors of the classic dish oeufs Jeannette, while giving the presentation a new spin, in the style of a shrimp toast or canape. But cooking is about innovation, and much like Jeannette Pépin developed her signature hard-boiled egg dish, you too should feel free to experiment with ingredients and techniques in this recipe.

There are many ways to upgrade hard-boiled eggs, from classics like deviled eggs to the more obscure, like hard-boiled eggs brûlée. If you want to stick with the French-inspired flavors of this dish, try tinkering with the herbs, vinegars, and alliums. In lieu of minced garlic, try shallots. The parsley could easily be substituted with thyme, or tarragon. Champagne or sherry vinegar would add an interesting new complexity to the vinaigrette.

If you want to take this dish closer to the Asian roots of shrimp toast, consider using tea eggs, or adding some soy sauce and sesame oil to the egg salad. Minced scallions and ginger could also bring some interesting aromatic complement to the dish. You could even replace some (or all) of the Dijon mustard with spicy Chinese mustard or wasabi to give the toasts an extra bit of bite.

It often seems that there are as many methods for preparing hard-boiled eggs as there are cooks in the world. Having tried almost every way to cook a hard-boiled egg, we certainly have some tips and tricks for getting it right.

One of these tricks comes from the man himself: Pépin uses a thumbtack to make perfect hard-boiled eggs. This tiny hole, pushed into the empty space at one end of the egg, allows gases to escape as it cooks, giving the egg room to expand. Another technique to accomplish this, if you don't have a push-pin lying around, is to gently tap the shells with a spoon until you hear it make a hairline crack. This second method is a bit riskier, as some of the egg can push its way out into the boiling water, but for making egg salad, where the whites will all be chopped anyway, this is not such a concern.

Really, when it comes to this dish, and egg salads in general, the eggs don't need to be perfect, they only need to be cooked hard. Giving them a bit of room in the shell, dropping them in boiling water for around 14 minutes, and letting them cool at room temperature or placing them in an ice bath — as in this hard-boiled eggs recipe — will do the trick just fine. 

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