In a French cafe, in Saigon, in 1956,

[Jaymes]

The year was 1956, and the French influence was strong in Saigon. In a small French cafe, my father had a dessert. It was, he says, basically just scrambled eggs that were then sprinkled with raw sugar and flamed with brandy.

He still speaks of it often.

And so I'm wondering....

Have any of you heard of it? Does it have an official name? Is it a well-known preparation, or do you think it was simply something that that particular chef thought up? If it's a common dish, is there anything special one does, or adds, to the eggs other than just scramble them?

Does any of this sound familiar to you?

[menton1]

Reminds me of The Quiet American, with Michael Caine...

[Chris Amirault]

I admit to replying to this thread just because I'm DYING to know what this is and want to bump it up to the top of the "New Posts" list! I have googled trying to find it but no luck. Surely some eGulleteer knows! Maybe you should post something in the Elsewhere Asia/Pacific forum....

[menton1]

Actually, this sounds just like Trifle pudding...

[Jaymes]

Well, my dad has tried to recreate it. He just scrambles up about four eggs, adding good heavy cream at the penultimate moment. And then he lays them in a flame-proof dish. He sprinkles a generous handful of turbinado sugar over them, then flames brandy in a ladle and pours it over. It's really good. The flaming brandy kind of caramelizes the sugar, and it tastes wonderful.

I don't know if trifle pudding fits that description. I think of the pudding part as being more....puddingy....if you know what I mean.

It's really darn terrific (not to mention blazingly easy and showy) just as it is, but I can't help but wonder about it. If it's a typical preparation....got a name....etc.

Edited December 22, 2004 by Jaymes (log)

[BigboyDan]

Trifle pudding it is; simplified, along with srambled eggs replacing the egg custard...

[Jaymes]

Trifle pudding it is; simplified, along with srambled eggs replacing the egg custard...

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All right....that's two votes for trifle pudding. That must be what it is.

Thanks to all of you that offered your thoughts.

Edited December 24, 2004 by Jaymes (log)

[jackal10]

Doesn't trifle need jelly and cake and fruit?

More likely flan (caramel custard) that has split...

[Jaymes]

Dad says that they made it tableside. And basically did just scramble the egg. Then tossed the raw sugar on top and flamed the whole thing.

He's not sure if they put anything else in with the egg, except for a little cream right at the end to stop the cooking process. But he's not positive. After all, it's been nearly 50 years. But he does remember that they just started with the egg at the table. The way he describes it, it wouldn't have had time to bake, like a flan.

[tan319]

It sounds more like a "rustically" prepared 'Norwegian'(sic?) omelette, which is kind of a sweet omelette, if I remember correctly.

I think you usually kind of let it souffle in the oven a bit sometimes.

Very old school dessert.

[Bux]

There is a an omelette soufflee. Both savory and sweet versions exist, but I think Norwegian omelet refers to the French term for baked Alaska.

From The Food timeline site (my emphasis):

"For all its French pretentions, baked Alaska has always seemed like an American dish. The French name omelette a al [sic] Norvegienne refers to the fact that the cake base is traditionally cut into an omelette shape. Presumably Norvegienne alludes to its chilly interior . . . That idea was also a popular one in the 1950s. Ice cream pies were very chic then, and baked Alaska ice cream pie was too soigne for words."

---Fashionable Food: Seven Decades of Food Fads, Sylvia Lovegren [MacMillan:New York] 1995 (p. 200-1)"

Several lines further down the page there's Escoffier's recipe for "Omelette Norvegienne," which is a baked Alaska -- ice cream on a layer of Genoise covered with a layer of either ordinary meringue or stiff Italian meringue and placed in a very hot oven to color the meringue.

The scrambled eggs with sugar sounds like a preparation that owes a debt to the omelette soufflee. I'd be curious to know if there was sugar beaten into the eggs before they went into the pan and if whites were beaten separately.

[foodie52]

I have a Vietnamese friend:I'll ask her then next time I see her.

[Margaret Pilgrim]

The concept of a simple omelet, sugared and flamed rang some kind of bell to me. Here a simple example is described.

[tan319]

I was thinking of that today, Bux.

Remembered that it was a Baked Alaska.

Can't wait to find out what it's called.

[Jaymes]

The concept of a simple omelet, sugared and flamed rang some kind of bell to me. Here  a simple example is described.

Read that description. Sounds exactly like it. It was made in a chafing dish tableside, so it probably was just a simple omelette, sprinkled with the raw sugar and flamed with the brandy.

Perhaps the "name" I'm looking for was just something simple, like the obvious perhaps? Omelette Flambe?

[Jonathan Day]

Mme St Ange (La Cuisine, 1927) writes about an omelette soufflée au rhum -- my translation and paraphrase of the recipe:

This is one of those good old desserts, a classic in home cooking, and always appreciated when it is well done.  In the old days this was started in a frying pan and finished in a [probably wood-fired] country oven.  Nowadays, with modern stoves and plates in which you can cook and serve, it's entirely cooked in the oven, like a soufflé.  ... you must use a copper bowl to get the egg whites exceedingly firm.  Without this, this omelette isn't worth trying.

The recipe calls for 4 egg yolks, 6 whites, 125 grams of sugar and 100 ml of rum. You work the yolks and sugar until it "forms the ribbon", add a tablespoon of rum to the yolk mixture, then fold in the beaten whites, first adding some of the whites to the yolk mixture to lighten it. This goes into a long or oval cooking-serving plate, which has been heavily buttered and dusted with powdered sugar. The top is smoothed over, and then a sort of trench, 3 to 4 cm deep, is cut in it with the blade of a knife held parallel to the surface of the omelette. "This trench helps the heat penetrate the interior, and it eventually becomes a reservoir for the rest of the rum." Several smaller incisions are cut around the omelette, in order to help the heat penetrate it.

This goes into the oven -- "a good moderate heat", avoiding an overly hot oven that will form a crust. The dish should first be put onto a hot burner for a minute, to warm the bottom, then it goes into the oven. [Alternatively, it could go straight onto the floor of an Aga, or onto a pre-heated pizza stone in a normal oven]. After 20 minutes, it is removed from the oven, sprinkled with powdered sugar, and put back into the oven for the sugar to caramelise.

Meanwhile, the rest of the rum has been heated with a bit of powdered sugar; when the omelette comes out of the oven, this goes into the trench on top and set afire.

[Jaymes]

Hummmm.....interesting.

It's starting to sound to me like there are several dishes involving the concept of eggs, prepared simply, then sugared and flamed.

I think that the French cafes in Saigon during that time had come up with a sort of 'quicky,' even easier version that could be prepared and flamed tableside.

[Bux]

I was thrown by the idea of "scrambled eggs," which I think of as quite different than an omelet, especially as they are both made in France. However, in America, we tend to make our scrambled eggs rather quickly over high heat much as the French make an omelet, and I could see an American describe the making of an omelet as scrabled eggs.

[Ptipois]

When I read the words "scrambled eggs", I instantly thought they must have been scrambled eggs "the American way", i.e. an omelette by French standards. Therefore I do believe that this mysterious dessert was an omelette soufflée au rhum ou au cognac ou à whatever spirit there was on hand. It most certainly was a traditional French dessert (and one that isn't commonly seen anymore, at that), there is no such thing in the Vietnamese repertoire of sweet dishes, however influenced by the French colonial presence.

[Jaymes]

When I read the words "scrambled eggs", I instantly thought they must have been scrambled eggs "the American way", i.e. an omelette by French standards. Therefore I do believe that this mysterious dessert was an omelette soufflée au rhum ou au cognac ou à whatever spirit there was on hand. It most certainly was a traditional French dessert (and one that isn't commonly seen anymore, at that), there is no such thing in the Vietnamese repertoire of sweet dishes, however influenced by the French colonial presence.

I think that this is the definitive word on this. It makes perfect sense. So thank you.

And also to the rest of you that contributed, especially Jonathan with the link, thanks to you all. From both me and my father.

Now, some of you should try this simple delight and let me know how you liked it!

[John Talbott]

I think that this is the definitive word on this.  It makes perfect sense.  So thank you.

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I know you want to put an end to this thread but I just googled omelette soufflée au rhum and got an incredible number of recipes and a pix that might be familiar to your father. 1956 must have been a nice time in Sai Gon, long enough after Dien Bien Phu and long enough before we came; my eggs in 1968 never looked as good as these.

[Jaymes]

I think that this is the definitive word on this.  It makes perfect sense.  So thank you.

I know you want to put an end to this thread but I just googled omelette soufflée au rhum and got an incredible number of recipes and a pix that might be familiar to your father. 1956 must have been a nice time in Sai Gon, long enough after Dien Bien Phu and long enough before we came; my eggs in 1968 never looked as good as these.

Actually, this thread is turning out to be considerably more interesting than I anticipated. I did click on both of your links (which I very much appreciate your taking the time to research and post), and am ready to expand upon my father's efforts to recreate what appears to be a most wonderful dish, indeed perfect for "les visites impromptues."

There are very few places my father has not been in his 84 years of an utterly remarkable life. And the stories he tells of Saigon in 1956 are right up there.

[Ptipois]

Now, some of you should try this simple delight and let me know how you liked it!

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I'm sure I'd like it a lot. I actually wish those old-fashioned desserts would really come back in style. Right now they're at the peak of their unfashionableness. They're from a past era when it really meant something to say "privé de dessert !" to a child. That was the time when cookbooks were actually meant to be used (oops, there she goes again...) and were full to the brim of omelettes soufflées, îles flottantes, puddings (lighter than their British counterparts), babas, charlottes, diplomates, crèmes and entremets. The French families living in Indochina before the fall of the French colonial empire must have been particularly fond of those desserts that helped to strengthen the cohesion of the expatriate family around their dinner table or to bring out a feeling of "just like being home" in a restaurant.

Cuisine coloniale is the French translation and adaptation (which I did) of David Burton's book French colonial cooking. Both are great reading (the English edition having more text and the French edition having nice illustrations) and I recommend them. While working on it, I kept wondering all along why this fascinating subject had been covered by a New-Zealander and no one in France had the idea to do it. Well there may be several reasons but there you have it. Besides, the French edition of the book didn't sell well. The French are not that interested in culinary history, including their own. Pity.

[maggiethecat]

I knew the word "scrambled" rang a distant gong, so I pulled out "Mastering the Art, Vol.I". Madame Child had it right there: Omelette Brouillee [scrambled Omelet]

The eggs, says Julia "will become a light broken custard."

[Jaymes]

Cuisine coloniale is the French translation and adaptation (which I did) of David Burton's book French colonial cooking. Both are great reading (the English edition having more text and the French edition having nice illustrations) and I recommend them.

This subject has gone from merely interesting to downright fascinating.

I have ordered the book you mention,

French Colonial Cooking from Amazon and am eagerly looking forward to perusing it.

Also, I think you're spot on when you suggest that the original rum in the dish probably was replaced with cognac/brandy in the French cafes of Saigon, because it would have been much easier and cheaper to use that than it would have been to count upon a steady supply of rum.

And John, from your post, it sounds as though you were in Vietnam in 1968. During the late 60's, I was living in Hong Kong and the Philippines.... perhaps we crossed paths.

Edited December 29, 2004 by Jaymes (log)