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Île Flottante (Poached Meringue Floating on Custard)

Name: Île Flottante (Poached Meringue Floating on Custard)
Prep time: 40 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 1 h 10 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: French
Ingredients: 500 ml milk; 4 egg yolks; 60 g sugar; 1 vanilla pod; 4 egg whites; 60 g caster sugar; 1 pinch salt; 80 g sugar; 2 tbsp water; 30 g flaked almonds

The French dessert, and the fourth thing this site does with a meringue. The soufflé page counts three ways of handling a whipped foam: chocolate mousse preserves it by chilling, dobos torte bakes it into permanent structure, and a soufflé bakes it and it still never becomes permanent. This one poaches it. Floated on milk at 80°C the surface sets in about two minutes and the shape is fixed, with no oven and no drying anywhere. Under it goes crème anglaise, the stirred custard this site did not have — and it wants the exact opposite of the meringue, because the moment it boils it is finished.

Steps

Split the vanilla pod into the milk and heat it over low heat until it steams, then take it off and leave it 15 minutes to infuse. This same milk does both the custard and the poaching.
⏲ 15 min
Whisk the whites with the salt, then add the sugar in three goes and take them to stiff peaks. Unlike a meringue for the oven you may take these stiff, because nothing here has to stretch as it rises (soufflé stops at soft peaks for exactly that reason).
⏲ 7 min
Move the milk to a wide pan and hold it at about 80°C — the surface trembling, no bubbles breaking. Scoop large spoonfuls of meringue in with two big spoons.
⏲ 5 min
One minute a side, then turn and give it one more. That is all. Egg white starts to coagulate around 62°C, so in 80°C milk the outside sets within seconds and holds the shape while the inside stays uncooked and marshmallowy. Lift them out with a slotted spoon onto kitchen paper to drain.
⏲ 4 min
Put the poaching milk back on the heat. Whisk the yolks and sugar pale, then pour the hot milk in a little at a time to loosen them. All at once and the yolks cook.
⏲ 4 min
Return it to the pan and stir without stopping over low heat to 82-84°C. It is ready when it coats the back of the spatula and a finger drawn through leaves a clean line. Never let it boil — as crème brûlée says, a custard set by yolk alone cannot come back once it goes past, and this one is not even in a water bath (cooking eggs).
⏲ 8 min
Strain it into a bowl, set that over iced water and stir until cool. Refrigerate at least 2 hours; it thickens a little more as it chills.
⏲ 30 min
Boil the sugar and water without stirring to an amber caramel. Judging it by temperature rather than colour, and pulling it a stage early, is in what sugar does.
⏲ 7 min
Pour the cold anglaise into a wide dish, float the meringues on it, trail the caramel over in threads and scatter the toasted almonds. Serve at once — caramel takes up moisture from the air and is gone within half an hour.
⏲ 5 min

Tips & Variations

Variations

Île flottante and œufs à la neige: ko.wikipedia notes that some people reserve "île flottante" for a large meringue cooked in a bain-marie in the oven and "œufs à la neige" for small ones cooked on the hob. In practice the names are used interchangeably; this page is the poached version.
Against a baked meringue: pavlova sits in a low oven for hours and is dried, which is why its outside is crisp. This meringue cooks for two minutes in liquid with no drying at all, so it stays soft right through. The same whites and sugar become two completely different things by changing only the time and the medium.
Against eton mess: there a baked meringue is crushed into cream on purpose. Here the meringue has to hold its shape, and the only reason it can is that poaching set the outside.
Crème anglaise has a life of its own: cold it is a sauce, frozen it is an ice cream base, and with gelatine it becomes a bavarois. This is the first stirred custard on this site — crème brûlée is baked, kaya toast uses a water bath, and the liaison in blanquette de veau thickens a sauce without setting it.
It is the custard poured over spotted dick. The British version usually takes a little cornflour to make it safe, but the principle is the same.
Instead of caramel: crushed praline, maple syrup, or just the toasted almonds. Caramel is the most French and the first thing to disappear.

Tips

Do not let the milk boil. Above 80°C the meringue surface roughens and it puffs and then collapses. No bubbles breaking at all is the right look.
Scoop them large. Small ones cook through in seconds and go firm in the middle. Use two big spoons and roll the meringue in.
Drain them. Milk clinging to a meringue wets the surface and it slumps into the custard.
82-84°C for the anglaise. With no thermometer, draw a finger down the back of the spatula. If the line closes it is not there yet; if it holds, it is. If you think it has gone too far, tip it into a cold bowl at once and whisk hard — that rescues a good deal of it.
Assemble at the end. Meringue and caramel both put on early are gone within half an hour.