Soups, Swabian, Vegetarian

Savory Egg Custard (‘Eierstich’)

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In German cuisine there are a ton of different soup dumplings. A clear beef consommé is traditionally the first course of a multicourse German meal. And because only sipping beef broth is a little boring there’s always some kind of dumpling floating inside.

I’ve already shown you how to prepare semolina dumplings, pancake strips, and bacon dumplings. Today, I want to introduce you to egg custard. It’s also known as royale and is basically a soft mixture of egg and milk that is allowed to slowly set over moderate heat.

Egg custard is an essential part of the German marriage soup which includes a variety of different dumplings like semolina dumplings, egg custard, bone marrow dumplings, liver dumplings, and small Maultaschen (meat dumplings).

Swabian Marriage Soup

Gentle and even heat is the key to silky smooth egg custard

I can’t stress enough the importance that you allow the eggs to set gently. Don’t rush the process. Strain the eggs through a sieve and patiently wait for the custard to set in the water bath. If the heat is too high the egg custard will look like Swiss cheese.

Egg custard with large air bubbles inside still tastes good but the texture is a little unpleasant. It doesn’t have that addictive creaminess to it. It’s light and fluffy but it doesn’t look pretty.

You can cut the egg custard however you want. I prefer to use my cookie cutters to give the pieces different shapes. But there’s nothing wrong with cutting the custard into squares or diamonds with a knife.

You don’t want to soak the egg custard in the broth for a long time. As with all soup dumplings, the piping hot broth gets poured over the dumplings at the table. There’s nothing worse than a soup full of mushy soup dumplings that you just spent a lot of effort to prepare.

One Comment

  1. Inge Schrecke Harker

    Thank you

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