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Winter Snow
Take the white of six eggs, which will be enough for an entremet; whip them till they get thick; have some milk boiling in a large stewpan over the fire; poach several spoonfuls of the whites in it, and when done enough, drain and dish them. Next, make a sauce to pour over them in the following manner. Take some of the milk in which you have poached your eggs, then put a little sugar, a little orange-flower, and a little salt; mix the yolks of four eggs with the same, stir the whole on the fire till the sauce is made thick, put it through a tammy, and mask the snow with it.
This is oeufs à la neige — floating islands — written for a cook who already knew what a custard should look like. The instructions omit sugar quantities and any temperature, so the two hinges are the heat of the milk and the heat of the sauce.
- Never let the milk boilThe recipe says "boiling" but a rolling boil tears the meringues apart and makes them tough. Hold the milk at a bare shiver, around 170–180F, and poach the spoonfuls 2 minutes on one side and 1 on the other, turning once.
- The custard is the real risk of failureFour yolks with no flour or cornflour will scramble if pushed past about 180F. Stir constantly over low heat, or in a bowl set over simmering water, until it coats the back of a spoon, then take it off at once.
- Sugar is unspecifiedAssume about 2 tablespoons whipped into the whites once they hold soft peaks, and 3 to 4 tablespoons in the custard for a scant pint of milk. The original leaves this to judgement and there is no way to recover the intended figure.
- Orange-flowerThis means orange-flower water, a distilled floral flavouring still sold in Middle Eastern groceries and baking aisles. It is potent — half a teaspoon in the sauce, added off the heat so the aroma survives. Vanilla is the modern default substitute.
- TammyA tammy was a worsted straining cloth through which sauces were forced, often by twisting or wringing it between two people. A fine-mesh sieve does the same job and catches any strands of set yolk.
- EntremetThe term originally denoted a dish served between the main courses, though by the nineteenth century it frequently meant a sweet course. The recipe reckons six whites enough for a single such dish.
- DrainingLift the poached whites out with a slotted spoon onto a clean cloth or kitchen paper. Milk left clinging thins the custard on the dish, so assemble shortly before serving.
- Serving temperatureThe recipe gives no direction; the dish is best either freshly made and warm or thoroughly chilled.
Whipped whites poached in milk and masked with a yolk custard appear in French cookery by the eighteenth century under the name oeufs à la neige — snow eggs — and comparable dishes were printed in English books as floating island, though the English 'floating island' was not always the same preparation. The recipe is economical with a single set of eggs: the whites make the snow, the yolks the sauce, and the poaching milk the base of the custard. Orange-flower water was a common flavouring of the period; over the course of the nineteenth century vanilla, increasingly sold as an extract, came to be used in its place in English sweet cookery.