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Royal Custard
Yolks 3 eggs 1 egg 1/2 cup Consommé 1/8 teaspoon salt Slight grating nutmeg Few grains cayenne Beat eggs slightly, add Consommé and seasonings. Pour into a small buttered tin mould, place in pan of hot water, and bake until firm; cool, remove from mould, and cut in fancy shapes.
This is a garnish, not a soup: a firm savory custard baked in a shallow mould, chilled, and cut into diamonds, stars or rounds to float in clear soup. The whole trick is baking it slowly enough that it stays smooth and pale.
- Oven temperatureNo temperature is given because the original assumes a range oven judged by hand. Bake at 325F in the water bath; hotter and the custard puffs, weeps and goes honeycombed instead of slicing cleanly.
- Water bath depth and timingThe hot water should come about halfway up the mould. A custard this size sets in roughly 20 to 25 minutes; it is done when the center barely trembles and a knife tip comes out clean.
- The shallow mould mattersThe recipe says only "a small buttered tin mould," but since the finished slab is cut into flat shapes, a shallow one is easier to work with. A small loaf tin, cake pan or a tin lined with buttered parchment all work; depth changes the bake time more than anything else.
- ConsommeUse a well-flavored clear stock, unthickened and not too salty, since it will be concentrated by nothing and seasoned again with the eighth teaspoon of salt. Canned broth is usable but taste before adding salt.
- Egg proportionThree yolks plus one whole egg to half a cup of liquid is a very rich ratio, which is what makes the custard firm enough to cut. Do not substitute whole eggs throughout; the result turns rubbery and weeps in the soup.
- Beat slightly"Slightly" is deliberate. Whipping air into the eggs gives a foamed, bubbly texture; blend just until the yolks and white are uniform, and skim any foam before pouring.
- Cool completely before cuttingWarm royal custard tears. Chill it thoroughly, turn it out, then cut with a small aspic cutter or a thin knife. Add the shapes to hot soup at the last moment, in the bowl or tureen, so they warm through without breaking up.
- YieldClose to a cup of custard mixture (the half cup is the consomme alone), enough to garnish several servings of clear soup.
This is the French royale, a standard garnish for consomme in nineteenth-century professional cookery, and it arrived in American domestic books by way of the same French service that gave household cooks croutons, quenelles and julienne vegetables. The Germans call the same thing Eierstich, and it appears in clear soups across central Europe under one name or another. Cutting the set custard into "fancy shapes" was a point of pride in the period, done with an aspic cutter, a set of tiny tin stamps in diamonds, crescents and hearts.