Mirlitons
6 macaroons 1 tablespoon grated chocolate 2 cups scalded milk 3 egg yolks 1 tablespoon sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla Pound and sift the macaroons, add chocolate and milk, let stand ten minutes then add the egg yolks, sugar and flavoring. Line patty tins with puff or chopped paste, fill with the mixture and bake in a quick oven twenty minutes.
A custard tartlet thickened with pounded macaroons rather than flour. The mixture is thin when it goes into the shells, so the shells and the oven do most of the work.
- The macaroonsThese are most likely crisp almond macaroons of the amaretti type, not the soft coconut kind and not French macaron sandwiches. The recipe gives no weight, and six will vary a good deal with size; dry them further in a low oven if they are at all chewy, or they will not sift to a powder.
- Grated chocolateA tablespoon grated from a block of unsweetened or plain dark chocolate. It is there for colour and a faint bitterness, not sweetness — cocoa powder is not a substitute in the same measure.
- Temper the yolksThe milk is scalded and stands only ten minutes, so it may still be hot when the yolks go in. Whisk a ladleful into the yolks first and return it, so the eggs do not curdle before the shells are filled.
- Chopped pasteApparently a paste with the butter chopped coarsely into the flour and given a few turns, rather than the folded layers of full puff; in effect a rough puff. The recipe allows either.
- Patty tinsSmall tartlet or muffin cups of about 2 to 2 1/2 inches. The line-and-fill order matters: line the tins first, chill them, and fill just before baking so the crust does not soak.
- The ovenA "quick oven" is usually reckoned at roughly 400 to 450F, hot enough to set the pastry but hard on a custard over twenty minutes. You may prefer to start hot and drop to about 350F for the remainder, pulling them when the centres still wobble slightly.
- YieldThe recipe gives no yield; two cups of milk should fill roughly ten to twelve small tartlets. They are best eaten the day they are baked, at room temperature.
Mirliton is French for a reed pipe or toy flute, and the name is also carried by small tartlets — the mirlitons of Amiens and of Rouen, almond-and-egg tarts baked in shallow rounds. The link between the pipe and the pastry is traditionally explained by their shape, though that is folk tradition rather than documented. In Louisiana the same word attached itself to the chayote squash, which has caused confusion ever since, but in a pastry chapter it means the tartlet. Here pounded macaroons stand in for the ground almonds of the French versions.