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Apples, Miroton Of
Pare, core, and slice half a dozen finely-flavoured apples. Place them in a stewpan with very little water, two table-spoonfuls of sugar, and some powdered cinnamon, and let them simmer very gently until reduced to a pulp; lay this smoothly in a dish. Then boil seven or eight lumps of sugar with a tea-cupful of water and the thinly-grated rind of two lemons: add a lump of butter the size of an egg, a spoonful of flour, another of brandy, the yolks of three eggs, and the white of one. Mix these well over the fire until quite smooth; pour over the apples; then whisk to a stiff froth the remaining whites of the eggs. When the custard is cold, pile the egg whites upon it, sift a dessert-spoonful of sugar on the top, and set the dish in the oven till the surface is lightly browned. Sufficient for four or five persons. Probable cost, 1s. 3d.
A layered apple dish under a lemon custard and a soft meringue. Everything hinges on the custard, which is thickened with egg yolk and flour and will curdle if it is allowed to boil.
- Keep the custard below a simmerCook it over low heat, or in a bowl set over barely simmering water, stirring constantly until it coats the spoon. The flour gives some protection against graining, but with three yolks in a small quantity of syrup it is safer not to let it boil.
- Lump sugarSeven or eight lumps is roughly 2 to 3 tablespoons of granulated sugar, say 30 to 40 g. Lump size varied, so weigh if you want precision.
- A teacupfulTake it as 6 fl oz, not a modern 8 oz mug. A butter lump "the size of an egg" is about 2 oz, or 4 tablespoons.
- A spoonful of flourGenuinely ambiguous in this book. A rounded tablespoon is the sensible reading for this quantity of liquid; less will leave the custard loose.
- Lemon rind"Thinly-grated" means the coloured zest only. Any white pith carried in will turn the syrup bitter, and there is nothing else here to hide it.
- The applesHalf a dozen good eating or cooking apples is about 2 lb. A variety that breaks down — Bramley, McIntosh — gives the pulp the recipe wants; firm supermarket keepers will stay in slices unless you mash them.
- Egg whites, dividedOne white goes into the custard, the other two are whisked for the top. Pile the meringue only on cold custard, or it will slide and weep.
- OvenThe dish only needs colour, not cooking. The original gives no heat or time; a moderate oven (around 325F) for a few minutes, or a brief pass under a broiler while you watch it, will do. The meringue is a soft one and will not dry crisp.
- ServingFour to five, as the original says, and it is best eaten the day it is made. Serve warm or at room temperature; refrigeration makes a soft meringue seep.
Miroton is an old French kitchen term, most familiar in miroton de boeuf — sliced cooked beef reheated in onion sauce — and also used of neatly arranged or bordered dishes; the origin of the word itself is uncertain. Applied to fruit, as here, it means little more than apples laid smooth in a dish and finished with something poured over and browned, and it sits alongside the apple charlottes and apple soufflés that fill the fruit chapters of nineteenth-century English cookery books borrowing French names. The probable cost is given as 1s. 3d.: apples were the one fruit an English household could count on in quantity through the winter, and the lemons, brandy and loaf sugar are what lift a pan of stewed apples into something fit to send to table.