custard tart

Today I learnt many things.

• Wine bottles do not make great rolling pins;
• Nigella’s pastry, while fabulous, quick and easy, will not be patched. Roll it perfectly the first time or start again;
• Pastry shrinks, make neat edges after you blind bake it;
• Nigella is hot, and her blind baking is hotter … to hot for me I’m afraid;
• Sweet pastry burns easily;
• Even the smallest hole in your pastry matters, though I’ve not idea how to fix holes other than starting from scratch;
• Sweet pastry can be eaten raw;
• Custard tarts are worth making over and over again until you get them right.

It sounds dire, but really there were only two attempts. There will be another attempt to perfect the custard tart, but this one turned out edible and almost presentable. Some trick photography covers up the effect of having a hole in my pastry, which let the custard mixture seep out to create a second custardy case in the gap between the flan tin and the crust. I haven’t attempted to extract it from the tin yet. This may be my undoing.

Ingredients

Pastry
120g flour (00)
30g icing sugar
80g butter
1 egg yolk
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
1 tbspn iced water

Measure and sift the flour and icing sugar into a bowl and cut the butter into cubes on top. Place the whole lot in the freezer for 10-15 minutes. Mix the egg, vanilla and iced water together and put in the fridge.

After 10 mins put the flour mixture into your food processor and blitz until the mixture resembles oatmeal. Add the liquid and blitz until the mixture almost forms a ball – it gets kinda lumpy looking. You may need to add more iced water, but do so a tinsy little drop at a time.

Scoop out the dough, push it into a disk and cover with clingwrap and bung in the fridge for 20 minutes, or longer. Then roll it out and line your flan dish (23cm thin or 20cm deep dish). Don’t trim the excess off until after you’ve done the blind baking – it shrinks too much.

For a custard tart you need to blind bake your case, so cover it in baking paper and pour over some rice or ceramic beads or something. Nigella blind bakes at 200 degrees for 15 mins, then covers the edges with tinfoil and blasts it for another 10 mins. I got crisps on my first go at her temperatures, so I did the second attempt at 160 degrees, which is the temperature you’ll bake the custard at anyway.

So, bake with paper and rice for 15 minutes then pull out the rice, brush the case with the left over egg white (this helps seal it), cover the edges with foil and bung it back in for andother 10 – 15 minutes until the base is nicely browned. Let this cool slightly before you add your custard mix.

Custard
3 eggs
1 egg yolk
2 tbspns sugar
splash of vanilla essence
300ml single cream
100 ml milk

Put the milk and cream in a saucepan and heat until just about to boil. Whisk the eggs, yolk, sugar and essence together in a bowl then slowly pour the hot milk mixture into the eggs, whisking constantly.

Pour the custard mix into your pastry case and top with grated nutmeg. Bake for 45 minutes, checking at 35 minutes. When it’s done it will be slightly wobbly still, but will set more as it cools.

Easy, huh?

food porn on wednesdays

she’s coming to my house!

Nigella is coming to my wednesday nights

yee ha!

Nigella’s pea risotto

I love Nigella. I love her lard and butter and bread and that she has given me permission to grate nutmeg into everything and weld a Marsala bottle to my hand to swig from and splash with as I see fit. Oh Nigella, where have you been?

I have How To Eat out from the library at the moment. I know … but we are a one income family at the moment, so if I am going to indulge it’s limited to three week periods. Testing cookbooks by borrowing them before you buy is a great way to ensure you don’t end up with shelves full of duds, though only having this one for a short time just makes me want it more.

There are many great things about this pea risotto recipe. Firstly, the pea puree is possibly the most delicious thing I’ve ever tasted. Velvety, nutmegy, cheesy heaven. I am officially gagging for my son to get to the puree foods stage now that I have discovered this. This boy and his mum may live on pea puree.

Secondly, it works when you cheat. Nigella does the whole hot stock one ladle at a time thing, which is commendable and I’m sure gives you a much better result. I whack all the stock in at once. Cold. From the packet, then bring it to the boil, pop the lid on, turn the heat down low and take my bottle of Marsala (well, beer actually) out to stand next to the barbecue and talk to my husband while he cooks the steak.

Two things to remember, which I didn’t. Make sure you turn the heat down and let your pan cook between cooking the peas and frying the onion. I didn’t and so browned the onion. Instead of keeping the brilliant green of the pea puree, everything got a little muddy looking. I’m sure Nigella wouldn’t mind. Also, the drop of oil with the butter when you add the onions is important. Somehow it stops the butter from burning/browning – anyone know why?

Ingredients

60g butter
150g frozen peas
1 litre stock
grated nutmeg
2 tbspn grated Parmesan
1 small onion
drop of oil (this is important, it stops the butter burning)
200g arborio rice
80ml white wine or vermouth

Melt 1/3 of the butter and add the frozen peas. Cook for 2 minutes until defrosted then remove 1/2 the peas and add a ladle of stock to the remaining peas. Pop on the lid and boil for 5 minutes until soft. Puree this with 1 tbspn of parmesan, 1 tbspn butter and a grating of pepper and nutmeg.

Try not to eat all of the puree while you make the risotto.

Turn the heat down and melt the remaining butter and that very important drop of oil. Add your onion, finely chopped, and cook 1 minute. Don’t let it brown. Add the rice and stir to coat, then you can either  do it the hard way, adding a ladle at a time and stirring each time until all the stock is absorbed, or dump all the stock in, bring it to the boil, turn the heat down very low and pop the lid on.

Either way, after 10 minutes add the reserved peas and at about 15-20 minutes beat in the pea puree and the extra tbspn of parmesan.

Serve with well rested steaks.

crumbed lamb cutlet comfort

The love of my life has been screaming at me for the past three days. At first I thought he was just over me, but when he started screaming at his dad too I figured it’s not just me. After a particularly long bedtime wind down, which is in fact a wind up for me, all I wanted was comfort food.

I am an emotional eater, aren’t we all, and usually emotional eating equals chocolate, but this week it equaled beautiful tender lamb cutlets with a thick crusting of breadcrumbs and mint from the garden, slowly fried in macadamia nut oil (oh yes). Somehow sucking on a cutlet bone takes all the baby blues away.

Crumbing anything at home can be a little messy, but it’s so worthwhile. You can of course, buy your cutlets already crumbed, but then you miss out on the pleasure of adding your own flavours. Parmesan is a great addition to the crumb mixture, as are any herbs you have on hand, and spices – chilli anyone? I haven’t given exact measurements below – you need enough to cover the amount of cutlets you’re crumbing.

Ingredients

mint – fresh is best, but dried will do
breadcrumbs
2 eggs
flour
salt and pepper

3 cutlets per person (2 to serve, and an extra one to suck on later)

macadamia nut oil
olive oil

Chop mint finely and mix with breadcrumbs and salt and pepper – spread on a plate. Lightly beat the eggs together in a bowl. Spread flour on another plate. Dredge each cutlet in the flour, then the egg, then the breadcrumb mixture, making sure they are well coated. Put crumbed cutlets in the fridge for 20 minutes to set.

Heat enough oil to cover the base of your largest fry pan – the temperature should be about medium, not so hot that it smokes, just hot enough for a light sizzle. I used half macadamia and half olive oil, mainly because I have a bottle of macadamia nut oil that’s 6 months past its useby date and I’m desperately trying to use it up before it goes rancid. However, it is still suprisingly good and gave the cutlets a really sweet, nutty tone.

The key here is to cook your cutlets slowly, browning the breadcrumb mixture slowly so nothing burns. Place cutlets in the hot oil and cook, about 3 minutes on each side.

Line a plate with absorbant kitchen paper and place cutlets in a single layer to drain. Cover with another layer of kitchen paper and then a couple of tea towels to keep everything warm. Leave to rest for about 10 minutes. This is really important, the kitchen paper soaks up a lot of the excess oil and the resting, well, it’s meat. Be patient. It’s always worth it.

ps … this month I’m channeling Nigella