Recipe no. 459 from Jean-Baptiste Reboul's La Cuisinière provençale (1909), page 212.
Ingredients
- Egg yolks, 8 to 10
- Caster sugar, 300 grams
- Boiling milk, a litre
- Vanilla pod
Preparation
- Mixing yolks, sugar and milkPut into a saucepan 8 to 10 egg yolks with 300 grams of caster sugar, mix well and dilute little by little with a litre of boiling milk in which you have infused a vanilla pod.
- Cooking the custard while stirringPut it back on the heat and stir with a wooden spoon until the moment the custard begins to thicken and before it boils.
- Checking the custard is cookedRemove from the heat at once. You will know the right point of cooking when, on lifting the spoon out of the custard, it stays coated so that the wood can no longer be seen.
- Watching for the boilAs it is, when you judge it is approaching this point, it is wise to move the saucepan to the side of the heat, so that it cooks more slowly and the boil does not catch you unawares, for a custard that has boiled is a spoiled custard.
Reboul's text
Put into a saucepan 8 to 10 egg yolks with 300 grams of caster sugar, mix well and dilute little by little with a litre of boiling milk in which you have infused a vanilla pod.
Put it back on the heat and stir with a wooden spoon until the moment the custard begins to thicken and before it boils.
Remove from the heat at once. You will know the right point of cooking when, on lifting the spoon out of the custard, it stays coated so that the wood can no longer be seen.
As it is, when you judge it is approaching this point, it is wise to move the saucepan to the side of the heat, so that it cooks more slowly and the boil does not catch you unawares, for a custard that has boiled is a spoiled custard.
Small Provençal glossary for this recipe
Reboul writes in French: no Provençal word appears in this recipe, apart from the dish's name itself. The table below gives the Provençal equivalents of the words used, in mistralian spelling, translated by Lingua Nostra. Each form is attested in our Provençal-English dictionary; click to open the entry.
| Provençal | English |
|---|---|
| iòu | eggs |
| sucre | sugar |
| la | milk |
| vaniho | vanilla |
| casseirolo | saucepan |
| cuié | spoon |
| crèmo | custard |
Source: Jean-Baptiste Reboul, La Cuisinière provençale, Marseille, 1909, recipe no. 459, page 212. Public domain. Transcription, formatting and Provençal glossary by Lingua Nostra.