Recipe no. 462 from Jean-Baptiste Reboul's La Cuisinière provençale (1909), page 213.
Ingredients
- Egg yolks, 10
- Caster sugar, 200 grams
- A vanilla pod
- Hot milk, a litre
- Egg whites, 10
- Caster sugar, 300 grams
Preparation
- Cooking the custard with the yolksPut into a saucepan 10 egg yolks with 200 grams of caster sugar, a vanilla pod, and moisten little by little with a litre of hot milk; stir over low heat with a wooden spoon. When, on lifting the spoon out, it stays coated, that is to say the wood can no longer be seen, the custard is cooked enough, it must not boil. Pass it into a bowl and stir from time to time with a spoon to keep a skin from forming on top.
- Whisking and sweetening the whitesSeparately, put the 10 whites into a bowl, whisk them to stiff peaks and sweeten them, once they are quite stiff, with 300 grams of caster sugar; mix gently, then take some of this mixture with a tablespoon or other spoon and drop it into simmering milk, lightly sweetened and vanilla-flavoured; the simmer should be barely perceptible. Turn the eggs so that they cook on each side and then set them on a sieve covered with a cloth.
- Reducing the milk and dressingWhen you have used up the mixture, reduce the milk by half and pass it into the prepared custard. When ready to serve, pour the custard into a compote dish and arrange the eggs on top.
Reboul's text
Put into a saucepan 10 egg yolks with 200 grams of caster sugar, a vanilla pod, and moisten little by little with a litre of hot milk; stir over low heat with a wooden spoon. When, on lifting the spoon out, it stays coated, that is to say the wood can no longer be seen, the custard is cooked enough, it must not boil. Pass it into a bowl and stir from time to time with a spoon to keep a skin from forming on top.
Separately, put the 10 whites into a bowl, whisk them to stiff peaks and sweeten them, once they are quite stiff, with 300 grams of caster sugar; mix gently, then take some of this mixture with a tablespoon or other spoon and drop it into simmering milk, lightly sweetened and vanilla-flavoured; the simmer should be barely perceptible. Turn the eggs so that they cook on each side and then set them on a sieve covered with a cloth.
When you have used up the mixture, reduce the milk by half and pass it into the prepared custard. When ready to serve, pour the custard into a compote dish and arrange the eggs on top.
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 |
| vaniho | vanilla |
| la | milk |
| casseirolo | saucepan |
| cuié | spoon |
| crèmo | custard |
| nèu | snow |
| sedas | sieve |
| servieto | cloth |
Source: Jean-Baptiste Reboul, La Cuisinière provençale, Marseille, 1909, recipe no. 462, page 213. Public domain. Transcription, formatting and Provençal glossary by Lingua Nostra.