The Dish That Reminds Jacques Pépin Of His Childhood

Most of us have a food that transports us back to childhood. It could be a dish local to where you're from or a recipe your parents always made. For Jacques Pépin, a longtime French chef, cookbook author, and TV show host, it's les oeufs Jeannette, or "eggs Jeannette" in English. In an interview with Food & Wine, Pépin was asked about the dish that brings him back to his childhood. He shared: "There's a lot of those ... but probably eggs ... One of them certainly, eggs Jeannette, which I named after my mother, was pretty common when I was a kid."

At first glance, eggs Jeannette may look a little like deviled eggs, but Pépin's recipe takes things in a different direction. Eggs Jeannette starts with hard-boiled eggs, which are halved with the yolks removed. Instead of mixing the yolks with mayo as you would with deviled eggs, the hard-boiled yolks are mashed with a fork and combined with a small amount of milk, garlic, parsley, salt, and pepper. The filling is spooned back into the halved egg whites, with a couple of tablespoons set aside. That extra filling goes into a dressing of Dijon mustard, olive oil, salt, pepper, and a splash of water. 

Then comes a unique twist: The eggs are pan-fried in vegetable oil, stuffed side down, for two to three minutes or until they get a golden-brown crust. Eggs Jeannette is served topped with the dressing and a side of rustic French bread.

The simple, thrifty nature of eggs Jeannette demonstrates the French home cooking Jacques Pépin grew up with during the World War II era. The chef was born in Bourg-en-Bresse, a city in eastern France, near the border of Switzerland, in 1935. German forces bombed the area in June 1940, and by the end of the month, they occupied over half of France. This resulted in food rations throughout the country, particularly for staples like meat and bread, which continued after the war until 1949.

Pépin confirmed what his family's diet was like during this period in an interview with PBS: "When we were kids, eggs were a staple on our table. Meat or poultry showed up there once a week at the most, and more often than not, our 'meat' dinners consisted of a delicious ragout of potatoes or cabbage containing bits of salt pork or leftover roast." When meat was heavily rationed or expensive, home cooks leaned on more accessible ingredients like eggs (when available) to create filling meals. Families in the countryside typically had chickens, making this a more reliable protein source.

Luckily for young Pépin, his parents ran a restaurant, Le Pélican, and his mother's culinary innovation and resourcefulness are clearly behind eggs Jeannette's creation. To this day, eggs remain one of the ingredients the legendary chef works with the most, and Pépin has a technique to cook eggs perfectly.