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Cream of Lemon Sauce
Take one cup of cold water, and pour one-half of it in a bowl with one tablespoon of starch, stir well until starch is dissolved. Pour the other one-half onto one heaping tablespoon of powered sugar and boil for a few moments--until sugar is thoroughly dissolved. Allow it to cool, and then add the starch, and one cup of milk, a pinch of salt, a little grated lemon-rind, and two yolks of eggs. Mix all thoroughly, then strain through a sieve, then put on the stove again, and over a moderate fire, stir it constantly, always in the same direction, until it has assumed the thickness you desire. Eggs "alla Sciarmante" Hard boil four eggs; cut into several pieces. Then prepare the following: Boil down to a syrup one heaping tablespoon of sugar, rind of one-quarter of lemon, one scant cup of water, and a little piece of cinnamon. Then remove the lemon-rind and the cinnamon, and add one cup of milk or cream. When heated through, take off of the fire, and add the yolks of four eggs, beating well together. Then pour the sauce over the hard-boiled eggs in a shallow baking-dish, put it in a very moderate oven, and bake. Before serving squeeze on a little lemon juice and garnish with squares of fried bread.
Two related preparations run together here: a stirred lemon custard sauce, and a baked sweet custard poured over hard-boiled eggs. Both are egg-yolk thickened, so heat control is the whole game.
- The hinge: keep the custard below a simmerOnce the yolks are in, the mixture thickens between about 170 and 180F and scrambles above that. "A moderate fire" here means gentle heat and constant stirring; pull it off the moment it coats the spoon.
- "Starch" means cornstarch"Starch" is unspecified -- Cornstarch is the usual modern reading, though potato starch or arrowroot would also suit. One tablespoon to a cup of water plus a cup of milk. Slaking it in cold water first, as directed, is still correct — it prevents lumps.
- "Powered sugar"A typo for powdered sugar, which in this period usually meant finely ground granulated rather than the cornstarch-cut confectioners' sugar sold today. Ordinary granulated sugar is the right substitute; a heaping tablespoon is roughly 20-25 g.
- "Always in the same direction"Kitchen lore with no basis in the chemistry. Stir however you like, but stir continuously and scrape the corners of the pan.
- Strain before, and afterThe recipe strains the raw mixture, which catches grated rind and stray albumen. Straining again after cooking is worth doing if any yolk has set on the pan bottom.
- "A very moderate oven"For the baked eggs, 300-325F. A water bath is not called for but helps: the dish is a custard, and dry oven heat above about 350F will curdle it and weep liquid.
- Lemon rindGrate or pare only the yellow zest. Any white pith turns the sauce bitter, and in the baked version the rind is meant to be lifted out of the syrup before the milk goes in.
- YieldThe sauce makes roughly two cups, enough for four to six servings poured over pudding, sponge cake or fruit. The eggs alla Sciarmante, with four eggs and four yolks, serves four as a dessert or a sweet supper course.
The pairing of a sweet custard with hard-boiled eggs looks odd to modern eyes, but it belongs to a long Italian and wider European tradition of sweet egg dishes in which eggs were treated as a dessert ingredient rather than a breakfast one — closer to zabaione or a rice-and-custard dolce than to anything savoury. The lemon-and-cinnamon syrup base is a standard Italian flavouring pair for milk puddings, and the fried bread croutons are the same garnish used for savoury dishes, doing double duty. The dish name "alla Sciarmante" appears to be an Italianised spelling of the French charmante, borrowed for a term meant to sound refined.