Spice Merengues – How to use leftovers and get a super-dessert

Do you know Merengues?

 

So, last week we had many leftover egg whites from the sauce Béarnaise (especially if you made double the amount, like I did ?).

My spice course participants in spring usually receive a special goody. And when our daughter comes to visit us and we eat spice merengues for dessert, she says: “So, did you have asparagus and sauce Béarnaise?” These two dishes are closely linked for me and my family.

Meringues give little work but are dried in the oven for a long time.

I always make the sweet ones, cinnamon, cassia, cardamom and ginger are very good, but salty is also possible. The spice imagination knows no limits.

It’s not exactly known where the name Meringue comes from.

It could come from the village of Meiringen/Switzerland, where they are said to have been invented, but this is not proven. In Switzerland they are often eaten just with whipped cream or with ice-cream. In autumn, however, they often accompany the Vermicelles (cooked and pureed chestnuts that are pressed through a sieve in order to be formed into strands, in French Vermicelles).

Probably the most famous dessert with meringues is the Pavlova, a meringue cake filled with fruit and whipped cream.

My sweet spice meringues can either be eaten with whipped cream or directly like biscuits.

The salty ones, on the other hand, can be used instead of aperitif biscuits or as an accompaniment to the asparagus with the Béarnaise sauce.

 

Sweet Spice Merengues

Ingredients:

• 1 egg white
• 50 g of sugar
• Ca. ½ teaspoon of spice to your heart’s desire (ginger, cinnamon, cassia, cardamom)

Preparation:

Beat the egg whites until they are stiff and then drizzle in the sugar and beat again until the mixture is shiny and dense. Then add the spice and mix well.

Put small piles of the mixture onto a tray lined with baking paper, either with two spoons or with a sac-à-poche.

Allow to dry in the 80°C oven (slightly open) (takes about 3 hours). The Merengues are dry when they sound hollow when you knock on it with a wooden ladle.

 

Salty Spice Merengues

Ingredients:

• 1 egg white
• 1 pinch of salt
• Ca. ½ teaspoon spices such as pepper, paprika, spice mixtures (Cajun, Berberè etc.)

Preparation:

Just like the sweet ones.