Goose Egg Custard and Meringue

I had absolutely no plans for cooking this week ... a couple of days at a conference venue eating delicious desserts was going to blow my “diet” enough ... but a friend turning up with an unusual egg for me to cook destroyed that plan ... and what an egg!!!

A goose egg!!! HUUUUUUUGE!!!!

I just had to take photos of it next to normal sized eggs to give an idea of how big it really was!! It weighed in at 230g (normal eggs for us are about 50-60g!). The photo showing the yolk has a regular sized egg next to it ... the yolk was bigger!!! What to do with such an amazing treat?! How to prepare it to be able to taste the flavour – but use the entire thing up at one time!!!

I had another friend visiting ... and we decided that custard was a perfect medium to taste goose egg (ok, so others might have considered an omelette ... but given it was me cooking it had to be a dessert!), and I’ve been craving meringue (like the top of a lemon meringue pie – not dried out icky ones!) so that used the whites.

I’ve put the revised recipe as I would cook it (if done again) rather than the actual recipe I used ... I put too much sugar in the custard and it was too sweet. Also – I like thick custard, not the traditional English very thin custard – so I’ve added cornflour to make it firmer. Oh ... another note: in Australia we don’t have to worry about cooking eggs etc – so the meringue recipe contains uncooked egg whites and may not be suitable for your area if you decided to cook with a goose egg!!

Goose Egg Custard and Meringue (based on egg weighing 230g)

Goose Egg Custard
1 1/2 cups of milk
1 vanilla bean (or vanilla bean paste)
Yolk of goose egg
70g castor sugar
1 tbspn cornflour

Heat milk and vanilla until nearly boiling in microwave. In saucepan whisk egg yolk, sugar and cornflour – slowly pour over warm milk, mixing the entire time. Put saucepan on low heat and cook until it thickens (should not boil).

Goose Meringue
White of goose egg
120g castor sugar

Whip egg whites until stiff peaks form, add castor sugar by sprinkling over whites in batches and mixing well in between.

I served it up (and I really do need to improve my plating skills!) by putting the custard in a bowl, then a dollop of the meringue on top – then using a blow torch to brown the outside, then drizzled over melted chocolate (I used 70% Kennedy and Wilson Chocolate – which is an Australian chocolate).

I also tried another bowlful (what? Me stop with one bowl?!) with raspberry jam (made by my mother) in addition to the chocolate ... don’t know which I liked better ... the very simple custard combination, or a touch of tart fruit!!

As for the conference desserts ... I tried (of course all in miniature form!): Lemon tart, flourless chocolate cake, tiramisu, crème brulee tart (the best!), lavender molten chocolate pudding (which was awful – I don’t like lavender and I can make better molten puddings myself!), rhubarb and black pepper cheesecake (which didn’t look anything like a cheesecake, and really another name would have been more appropriate), chocolate tart, pear frangipane and a cheese platter .... which I consider a pretty good variation given we were only there for 3 days!!!!!! (and I didn’t even try all the options!!)... and yes ... the diet is blown!! *sigh* back to reality and boring food!!