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Egg Snow with Coffee Cream
Whip the whites of five eggs to a firm froth and mix in five tablespoonfuls of caster sugar and one tablespoonful of coffee extract. Put in a stewpan one quart of milk, add three tablespoonfuls of sugar and boil; then add the beaten whites, one tablespoonful at a time, and stand the pan at the side of the fire. When the whites are done, take them out, drain and let cool. Put the yolks of six eggs, beaten up with one teacupful of the sweetened milk in which the whites were cooked, into a stewpan, and stir over the fire until thick, but without boiling; strain, and when cool, mix in one tablespoonful more of the extract. Arrange the poached whites in a circle on a dish, pour the coffee-cream over, and serve.
Eggs, Turkish Style Blanch and pound four ounces of pistachio nuts in a mortar, adding occasionally a few drops of milk to keep them from oiling, and put them into a lined saucepan with one dessertspoonful of ground rice and the yolks of eight eggs, adding also half a pound of sugar and a piece of stick cinnamon; beat all until well mixed and pour in gradually one quart of cream and stir over the fire until thickened. Pour some syrup into a flat stewpan, and break carefully one dozen new-laid eggs into it, to poach. Take the cinnamon out of the mixture, pour it on a dish, place the poached eggs around it, garnish with macaroons soaked in brandy, and serve very hot.
Two related dishes run together in the original text: a coffee-flavoured œufs à la neige, and a hot pistachio custard with poached eggs. Both hinge on holding a milk or cream custard below the boil.
- Never let the custard boilThe yolk mixture thickens between 175 and 180F; past about 185F it curdles into sweet scrambled egg. Stir constantly over low heat or a water bath and pull it the moment it coats a spoon, then strain as directed.
- Poach the meringues, do not boil them"Stand the pan at the side of the fire" means moving the pan off the direct heat to a bare simmer, with no bubbles breaking. Spoonfuls of meringue need only a minute or two a side; at a rolling boil they inflate, weep and collapse.
- Caster sugarSuperfine sugar. Granulated works if you pulse it briefly in a grinder; it dissolves faster into the whites and gives a smoother meringue.
- Coffee extractA concentrated coffee essence of the period, sometimes sweetened. Use a good coffee extract, or reduce very strong espresso with a little sugar until syrupy. Instant coffee dissolved in a teaspoon of hot water is a workable substitute; plain brewed coffee is too dilute and will slacken the custard.
- TeacupfulGenuinely imprecise in this era, anywhere from a half to three-quarters of a cup. Start with half a cup of the hot poaching milk to temper the yolks and add more if the custard seems too thick.
- StewpanA wide, straight-sided saucepan. For the meringues you want the width, so the spoonfuls float without touching; a saute pan or deep skillet is closer in spirit than a tall pot.
- DessertspoonfulTwo teaspoons. The ground rice in the Turkish custard is a starch stabiliser, which makes that mixture more forgiving of heat than the first custard.
- Blanching pistachiosPour boiling water over shelled nuts, stand a minute, then slip off the skins. The drops of milk while pounding keep the paste from splitting into oil; a food processor does this faster, pulsed rather than run continuously.
- Yield and servingThe coffee version serves about six. Serve it cold, the Turkish dish hot as the text specifies, and note that the second one is very sweet: half a pound of sugar to a quart of cream can be cut by a third without harming the set.
Snow eggs, u0153ufs \thrift dish in French confectionery: whites poached in the milk, yolks turned into the custard beneath, nothing wasted from the egg basket. By the time Oscar Tschirky was serving as the Waldorf's maître d'hôtel — his book appeared in 1896 — the dish seems to have been a familiar sight on hotel dessert lists, and flavouring it with coffee extract reflects how thoroughly coffee had moved from the cup into the pastry kitchen — extracts and essences were sold commercially and were the standard way to get concentrated flavour without watering a custard. The second dish, labelled "Turkish style," belongs to a long European habit of attaching Ottoman names to anything built on pistachios, cinnamon and heavy syrup; the association is conventional rather than a claim of actual origin. Oscar's book collects the working repertoire of a large American hotel kitchen, which is why two unrelated egg desserts sit shoulder to shoulder with no transition between them.