Fruit mince tarts*

’Twas the month before Christmas, and all through the flat
Not a surface was clean of flour or fat
Pastry and cutters were strewn all around
In the hope that good eating soon would abound

The shortbread was nestled all snug on their trays,
While the oven was hot, as it had been for days.
And I in an apron, with a slogan ironic
Had just settled down for a nice gin and tonic

When into my head popped an unsettling thought,
I sprang to my feet feeling distraught.
Away to the pantry I flew like a flash,
Tore open the doors and spilled out my stash.

I worried I’d find nothing but squishy sultanas,
As appetising as nasty overripe bananas.
When, by what vision my wondering eyes should be lit,
But dark chocolate shavings, cranberries and hazelnut bits.

And crystallised ginger, merjool dates and figs
A small number of raisins, apricots and cinnamon twigs.
Two large granny smith apples, shiny and grated
And candied citrus peel, albeit dated!

Now cardamom! now, nutmeg! now, orange brandy!
on cloves, on brown sugar with a sweetness of candy!
Finally blanched almonds, chopped, toasted and browned!
All tossed from the cupboard and onto the ground.

Then, in a twinkling, I chopped up the fruit
And stirred in mandarin marmalade made by Aunt Jude.
I added the nuts and the apple and mixed it around,
stirred through the chocolate and spices, whole and ground.

I splashed in the brandy, until all was gooey and wet,
And covered with cling wrap to allow it to set.
Then after a week I made more buttered shortbread,
(Although store bought shortcrust would work well instead).

I pressed the pastry to line a small muffin tin,
And filled with the fruit mince up to the brim
And laying atop each a star or stylized tree,
I created some goodies both delicious and twee.

When the last star was fixed, I brushed with egg glaze,
And sprinkled with sugar, then picked up the trays
popped them into the oven, pre-heated and warm,
And sat back to wait for the pies to transform

After twenty five minutes, the timer gave a screaming,
And I pulled out the tarts, golden and gleaming.
After a minute or two, I popped them onto a rack
To cool down and settle before I could snack

As popped my feet up to rest and relax
I heard the sound of a thief scoffing still-too-hot snacks
But I heard him exclaim, that prince of my heart,
"Happy Christmas to all, it’s a bloody great mince tart”.

* clearly a homage to Clement Clarke Moore

Fruit mince tarts

... are an inexact science. Traditionally fruit mince did in fact contain minced lard (creamy pig fat), which made them ridiculously rich and luxurious. It can be hard to source these days, and really, the caloric load of these babies doesn’t need further encouragement.

Approximately 1 kg of dried fruit, in pretty much any combination

For example:

200 gm whole dried cranberries

100 gm raisins

150 gm dried apricots (roughly chopped)

200 gm merjool dates (seeds removed, roughly chopped)

100 gm prunes (roughly chopped)

150 gm dried figs (roughly chopped)

100 gm dried citrus peel

50 gm crystallised ginger

50 gm sultanas

100 gm blanched almonds, toasted in the oven until brown, roughly chopped

100 gm roasted hazelnuts, roughly chopped

100 grams grated or finely chopped very dark chocolate (it’s important for the chocolate to be really bitter to off-set the sweetness of all the fruit)

1 jar of marmalade

125 ml brandy (I use orange brandy, but any will do)

½ cup brown sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger

½ tsp nutmeg

½ tsp ground cardamom

½ tsp ground cloves

2 large green apples, peeled and grated

Mix everything together. The mixture should be sticky and a little bit goopy (it’s very forgiving. A super sloppy mixture makes softer, smoother mince pies, thicker, chunkier mixture makes a denser, crumble pie filling). Leave in the fridge for at least three whole days, and up to two weeks.

After a week ...

Heat oven to 180 degrees celsius.

Line shallow muffin tin with rounds of shortbread mixture or shortcrust pastry. My tins are almost magical in their non-stick-ness, so I don’t line or grease them. Use muffin-tin liners if you’re worried about the pastry cases sticking.

Fill with a heaped tablespoon of fruit mince mixture (or until level the top of the crust). Top with a star (or make a lid, sealed to the case with a bit of egg wash – if you do this, make sure you poke a wee hole in the lid to let the steam escape, otherwise you may end up with exploding pies ...). Brush with egg wash and pop into a moderate over for about 20 to 25 minutes (they’ll smells toasty and buttery, and be golden on top when they’re done). Leave in the tins until almost cool (otherwise the pies might break apart when you try to remove them from the tin).

When completely cool, dust with icing sugar.

Makes approximately 4 dozen mini mince tarts.

Spicy almond biscuits to warm the coldest of hearts

There are bronze stars and red glitter-spangled baubles hanging from the ceiling above my desk at work. Silver stars and snowflakes and globes are strung from the banisters in my apartment and attached with paper clips to the small pine tree in the corner of one room. The house is filled with the scent of cinnamon and sugar.

Last night after yet another bellini* themed Christmas catch-up with yet another indispensible friend on my way to cook dinner for another different and equally valuable loved one, I stopped to buy a small Christmas gift for my mum. With a backpack full of dried fruit and nuts and Christmas cheer, a handbag containing frozen broadbeans, and an accumulation of several weeks worth of Champagne, I perhaps was not in the best frame of body or mind to browse in a crowded, tiny shop full of small gift type things.

A beautiful young man set aside a small something whilst I searched for additional perfect lovely things. I love Christmas, I hum carols, I adore that the world pretends to be shinier, more beautiful, more bearable for just the smallest window of time. To my very great shame, last night I got fed up and frustrated and walked out the shop before purchasing these gifts.

And the boy, who had so helpfully found the very last stocked item of a hard to find special something, ran out of the shop after me. He had already wrapped my pieces in Christmas paper. He was sorry it was so busy. He explained that it was Christmas. As if I didn’t know.

I couldn’t have felt more like Scrooge if I tried**. I walked back into the store.

This morning I made cookies. Something I have been meaning to do for weeks. To decorate the tree. To give as gifts. To just have the house smell like Christmas baking and holidays and love.

And this afternoon, I packed a brown paper bag with tissue paper and biscuits. I walked back up the street, intending to deliver them to the manager of the store I been so well and undeservedly served the night before. An anonymous gift. Except, the very same man who had been so patient the evening before was standing out the front of the shop. And he recognised me.

And there I was, with a bag of cookies. I explained that it was Christmas. As if he didn’t know. I couldn’t have felt more like Scrooge if I tried***. He walked back into the store. With the cookies.

* Fresh white peach puree, peach schnapps, prosecco.
** “He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog-days; and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas.” Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol
*** “And it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us!” Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol

Almond spice biscuits

200 gm raw almonds (no need to have blanched ones, the skins are fine)
1/3 cup icing sugar
1/3 cup castor sugar
¾ cup flour
2 egg whites
3 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cardamom
½ tsp ground black pepper

Heat the oven to 150ºc. Line several baking trays with greaseproof paper.

Put nuts in a food processors and pulse until the nuts are finely ground. Add everything else and pulse to combine.

Gather together into a ball. Roll out between sheets of plastic wrap (the egg white make it quite sticky).

Cut out with cookie cutters. Gather the scraps and roll out again, until no more dough is left.

Bake for about 20 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

Decorate and share.

Nothing in the world quite like home-made scones, straight from the oven

Flour. Butter. Milk. Jam. Cream.

No need to complicate things. No need to buy a packet of biscuits in which the packaging probably cost more than the contents, and probably has fewer unappetising additives. No need to fuss for hours, turning out the most delicately shaped and flavoured colourful tiny petits fours. No need to worry about whether the sponge cake will rise or if the cheesecake will set.

Nothing compares to sitting down at the kitchen table and enjoying a mug of tea (not a cup, not a pot, a mug, preferably with tea-bag still in) and having a good chat and a hot, slightly misshapen scone. No high-tea or trendy cafe can ever replace the gentle satisfaction of doughy steam and flour streaked hair. The comfort of not caring, and just enjoying.

The perfect scone is light and fluffy, without a golden blush on the top. Less than ten minutes to get it into the oven and less than ten minutes in the oven. Unpretentious.

Best served with what is generically known as ‘little-old-lady-church-jam’ which can be procured from any country market or church fete, usually sold in jars of varying sizes that used to contain tomato paste or pickles, topped with gingham-checked circles of cloth, with each different coloured mop-top indicated a different flavour of jam (flavours will include passionfruit and tomato jam, grapefruit marmalade, peach and walnut jam, carrot and lemon marmalade and cherry chutney). Cream, whipped, is not optional.

Simple scones, no fuss

This recipe is remembered from the now fallen-apart Commonsense Cookery Book. The Book is still in print, although updated. Mine was published in the 50s.

2 cups self raising flour
50 gm butter, cold, diced
1 cup milk (curdled with 1 tbsp lemon juice, optional)

Preheat oven to hot – about 220ºc. Line a baking slide with greaseproof paper.

Sift flour into a bowl. Toss in cubed butter. Rub through the butter. This mean very lightly with your finger tips crush the butter cubes into the flour. Do not use your whole palm – you want the butter to be crumbled into the flour but not melted. Rub in under the mixture resembles very fine bread crumbs. Alternatively, put the flour and butter into a food processor and pulse until fine crumbs form.

Make a well and pour in three quarters of the milk. Mix together with a butter knife until a loose ball of dough forms – adding more milk as required.

Turn out onto a board or bench lightly floured (with self raising flour) and knead lightly until a smoothish dough forms.

Roll with a rolling pin until about 2cm thick. Cut with a scone cutter (do not twist the cutter as you cut – this will seal the scone edges and they won’t rise as well). (re-knead any dough after you have cut and roll and cut again, until the scone dough is used up)

Place the scones on to the baking slide, brush the tops with a little milk.

Bake in the hot oven for about 10 minutes, until puffed up and springy.

Serve immediately with whipped cream and your favourite jam.

Savoury carrot tartlets with vanilla salt

The carrot is the orange constant, always just there and never really seen. Versatile, sweet, crunchy, easy to cook (steam, bake, poach, stir-fry) and delicious raw, useful as an aromatic in stock and in a sofrito base for risotto and ragu. Yawn. It is a vegetable easily taken for granted, eaten without thought or admiration.

It is a fact not generally acknowledged that carrots are a seasonal vegetable. Carrots are of course a remarkably resilient root crop, and will grow with good humour all year round in almost any conditions. But they really do come into their own in late autumn, which seems fitting as the beautiful rich orange of modern day carrots seems to fit so elegantly with the orange-red-gold-brown-purple of the autumn leaves and the dusky watercolour skies.

Modern day carrots, because like so make fruits and vegetables, the carrot has been subject to a process of long-term selective breeding, a natural genetic modification whereby the most delicious and desired crops are selectively chosen and reproduced*. Farmers markets and home vegetable patches continue to reveal heirloom varieties in yellow and red and purple and creamy white.

With their universal availability and their universal versatility, it is easy to let the carrot take a back seat, filling in the space around the main event, providing the background depth of flavour to a more interesting meal. Switching my thinking around to what goes well with carrot, as opposed to what will carrots go well with. The carrot at the centre and not just a side dish or base ingredient. What freshness is needed to offset the sweetness? What method of cooking meat will yield something soft and strong enough to enhance and showcase their woody earthiness? Can carrot truly shine on its own?

Carrot puree reduces carrot to the essence of carrot flavour. Without the characteristic shape or crunch, this method narrows the focus of the palate onto taste and taste alone. Healthy, unusual and visually striking. It is incredible just how intense the carrotness is: light and fluffy, it is beautiful warm as a sauce smeared underneath a thick slice of grass-fed eye fillet cooked sous-vide. Or with parsley and almond meal crusted pan fried fish. Or as below, chilled and used as a filling for savoury tartlets. In tart form, the carrot is on its own, entirely. It would have easy to enhance it with cumin or corriander or even maple or honey. But I wanted a pairing at once more subtle and more uncommon. Something that demonstrated the elevation of carrot from the background to star-status.

Hence vanilla: both carrot and vanilla, away from their familiar and comfortable surrounds. Not to be taken for granted.


* Rumour has it that our homogenous orange carrots are in fact the result of a preference in Holland for breeding vegetables in honour of the royal family (the house of Orange). However, the orange carrot, along with purple, red, yellow and white varieties is known to have been actively cultivated for thousands of years, across the Middle East, continental Europe, Asia and North Africa. The World Carrot Museum has a wealth of information regarding the origins, cultivation and use of carrots, as well as the history of carrots in art and world events.

Carrot tartlets with vanilla salt

These tartlets were inspired by the recipe for vanilla salt from Not Without Salt, and the throw-away suggestion that the salt can be sprinkled on glazed carrots.

Carrot puree

Serves 4

4 or more large carrots, peeled finely grated
50 g butter or 2 tbsp olive oil

Melt butter in a large saucepan until foaming. Add grated carrots, stir. Reduce heat to very low, cover and let steam for about half an hour, stirring occasionally. Continue to cook until the carrot has collapsed (it is dissolve when squeezed between thumb and finger). Do not add any water – the idea is to concentrate the carrot flavour.

Let cool slightly, then transfer to a blender and blend until smooth and fluffy – the carrot will change colour sightly, turning a slightly lighter shade as more air is incorporated. (For the tarts below you can add ½ tsp scrapped vanilla if you like, otherwise season to taste and serve with poach vegetables or steamed fish or lightly poach beef fillet or grilled chicken).

For tarts shells:

1 packet phyllo pastry (8 sheets will make approximately 40-50 miniature tart shells)
¼ cup olive oil

Preheat oven to 200ºc.

Working with sheets of phyllo pastry, brush a sheet with olive oil, then place another sheet on top, and brush with oil, until four sheets are layered

Cut into squares big enough to make a rough little tart shell inside a muffin tray. Line a muffin tray, cook for about 5 minutes, or until brown and crisp. When cool enough to touch, remove and let on a rack to cool. Tart shells will stay crisp for about 25 hours (but will start to soften in contact with moisture, including a filling).

For carrot tarts:

Just before serving, fill each tart shell (I used a piping bag – it’s neat and quick). Sprinkle generously with vanilla salt, serve within half an hour.

Sugar and spice and all things nice: Siena cake

As a small child I refused to eat cake. Christmas cake was the worst, being cake, with sultanas, and alcohol and without icing.

Birthday cake was also off the agenda: for the twelve years or so of childhood birthday parties I had ice-cream cakes. Or baklava. At some point I discovered chocolate mud cake, a barely set, gooey pudding like cake rich and fudge. This was acceptable. We bought a croquembouche for my twenty-first birthday.

I still dislike sponge cake, with its dry polystyrene texture and melted polystyrene flavoured fake cream. I will still most likely turn down cake when offered. I’m not on a diet: I just don’t like it.

And then I discovered panforte – a highly spiced very dense fruit cake also known as Siena cake. Siena cake was made in Siena as early as the 13th century, and was even an official part of the tithes paid to an order of nuns in region. Made sweet with boiled honey and dried fruits, this cake basically set itself up for sainthood when chocolate was brought back from the new world. More toffee-like than cake-like (the name literally means “strong bread”) this is cake I can get to know and love. It is rich, dense, nutty, spicy with cinnamon and pepper, and not too sweet.

Perfect for a grown-up after dinner sweet, with a little liqueur and very strong espresso. And I know I would have loved this as a kid: no icky dryness, no fake cream and no sultanas.


Chocolate Panforte

This recipe was originally from www.taste.com (note that I have tinkered a little with the quantities + ingredients from the original, but the method remains the same)

Olive oil (for greasing the tin)
100g whole blanched almonds
100g whole hazelnuts
200 g mixed dried fruit, roughly chopped. I like mixed peel, dried apricots and dried figs in about equal quantities. You can also use candied melon or dried cranberries or dried cherries. Even sultanas, which I don’t really like ...
100g (2/3 cup) plain flour
2 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp cinnamon powder
½ tsp powdered ginger
½ tsp ground cardamom
¼ tsp nutmeg
¼ tsp cracked black pepper
¼ tsp powder chilli powder (optional)
100g good-quality dark chocolate (at least 75% cocoa solids), chopped
125ml (1/2 cup) honey
55g sugar
Icing sugar (or gold powder, which I use at Christmas), to dust

Preheat oven to 180°C. Brush a 20cm (base measurement) springform pan with melted butter to lightly grease. Line the base with non-stick baking paper.

Spread the almonds over half a baking tray and spread the hazelnuts over the remaining half. Bake in preheated oven for 8 minutes or until toasted. Place the hazelnuts on a clean tea towel and rub to remove the skins. Reduce oven to 170°C.

Place almonds and hazelnuts in a large bowl. Add the chopped dried fruit and stir until well combined. Sift over the combined flour, cocoa, cinnamon and mixed spice and stir to combine.

Place chocolate, honey and sugar in a small saucepan and stir over medium-low heat until sugar dissolves and chocolate melts. Bring to the boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer, without stirring, for 2 minutes or until a candy thermometer reaches 116°C or 'soft ball stage' (If you don't have a thermometer, drop 1 teaspoonful of syrup into a glass of cold water. If the syrup becomes a soft ball it's at soft ball stage.)

Pour the hot chocolate mixture into the fruit mixture and, working quickly, stir until well combined. Spoon into prepared pan and smooth the surface. Bake in preheated oven for 30-35 minutes or until just firm. Remove from oven and set aside to cool. Will keep for about two weeks.

To serve, dust with icing sugar (or gold dust) and cut into thin wedges.

Beetroot Caramel: a work in progress

Beetroot caramel – possibly as crazy as it sounds

It doesn’t take much to amuse me. For example, this add* reduces me to fits of laughter. Every. Time. And the surprised kitty? I can watch that on a continuous loop and weep.

I like to laugh, and I like to make people laugh. I have a very good friend who is a boxer and personal trainer. He is probably one of the funniest people I know. It’s a bit of a challenge for me, to try to find something that will make him laugh. Because he’s not just funny, he’s really good at keeping a poker face. No matter how funny something is, he’ll rarely crack a smile. I think this is because he knows that people will laugh even harder, and joke around even more just to try to get him to give in.

One of the things I like to do is say outrageous things to him, just to try to shock him into giggling. Just a bit. Mostly though, he just laughs at me when I’m not trying to be funny. This is devastating, because he still wins. He’s still the funniest, because this isn’t about me being funny, but about him finding the funny in a situation.

A little while ago we were talking about beetroot. And the joke, finally, may be on him.

It started out serious: the merits of tinned versus fresh. I, as ever, the advocate for fresh. Sure, steam, boil and/or pickle if you feel the need, but start with the fresh b’root. I argued for raw-grated, whole-baked-in-foil, unpeel-steamed, juiced and borscht (yes, I even bought up the borscht). He, as ever, remained underwhelmed by my passionate defence. Refused to rise to the emotion of the debate. Refused to even concede there could be a difference (he wouldn’t even defend the primacy of the tin. Just that it made no difference!).

And then it popped out – beetroot caramel. Dessert beetroot. The ultimate in the absurd. Finally, he cracked, a little, a tiny, miniscule crack. And then, the poker face reasserted. He questioned the sanity of such a suggestion. Claimed it just wouldn’t work.

Challenge accepted. Less a case, now, of ‘can I make him laugh?’, and more a case of calling his bluff. What was a whimsical throwaway line was now a serious challenge.

I’ve played around in my head with different ideas for how this beetroot caramel could work. And it does make sense – beetroot is already sweet, and already a delicious dessert purple colour. We make pumpkin pie, and yam pastries. I have been known to consume sweet potato with condensed milk (don’t ask). It’s not so ridiculous after all.

Ideas have included: mandolin sliced beetroot, sprinkled with confectioner’s sugar and baked in the oven until crisp (with coffee); grated beetroot, air- (or oven-) dried, mixed with toasted pine-nuts and then drizzled with burnt sugar caramel (a little like a praline in my head – serve with yoghurt or ice-cream); whole roasted beetroot, cubed and then dipped in caramel like a toffee apple and sprinkled with sea salt (with dessert wine or port); beetroot crème-caramel, with pureed steamed beetroot blended with cream and eggs topped with a orange-chilli caramel sauce.

At some point I clearly forgot that I have no particular talent for making anything sweet.

My first attempt at beetroot praline looked fantastic (or at least better than I expected)– however, I burnt the caramel, which made everything far too bitter, and the sweetness and colour of the beetroot was lost in the dehydration. But I was not ready to give up on this idea yet.

Beetroot-toffee-apples: also a miserable failure. The beetroot went soggy. And the caramel wouldn’t stick.

Spicy beetroot custard pie with toffee crisps was the closest I’ve come yet. Chocolate and orange rind shortcrust pastry, custard spiced with copious amounts of cinnamon and cardamom, enriched with strained mashed roasted beetroot. Topped with sugar lace, just melted in the oven then hardened. The trouble was – not beetroot-y enough. Also, my pastry technique is pretty much non-existent.

I maintain however, that it’s not insane at all.** The key? Balancing the sweetness of the beetroot with that almost bitterness that a good caramel can impart, and balancing the texture of the beetroot – soft with hard, mushy with crispy. I just haven’t managed it yet.

* I don’t even watch the show. I don’t even eat this product. It’s just insanely funny to me.

** And imagine my surprise when I saw, on the menu of a fantastic restaurant recently ‘mango bavarois with caramel beetroot’. Of course I ordered it. Only to be informed that the chef had taken the beetroot off the dish – turns out, the caramel melts in their tropical heat. I ordered the dish anyway – the caramelised slice of lime and coconut and chilli sambal more than made up for the disappointment!

Virginal tarts

I love the hidden depths of history and mystery that lie behind even the most simple of foods.

Last Thursday I left early for work. This resulted in me running behind schedule (there is a weird logic to this) and hence foregoing coffee on the way to the office. Later that morning, when I escaped to quieten my caffeine withdrawal symptoms I had the misfortune of arriving in the cafe at the precise moment a tray of Portuguese custard tarts were removed from the oven. Bubbly and patchy with caramelisation. Puffed up and buttery. Goopy.

In my weakened state I was powerless to resist. Like the selfish caffeine addict that I am, I purchased a single tart all for myself and practically inhaled it before the coffee was half empty.

Arguably, pretty much anything straight from the oven is guaranteed to smell and taste 10% better than anything else, ever. But I have a particular soft spot for the pastel de nata.* And I’m not the only one. I remember visiting no fewer than four cafes with a colleague one afternoon to satisfy her very specific and ultimately unsatisfiable craving.

Pastry. Egg custard. Done. Nothing could be more basic. But the Portuguese custard tart is a little like the Holy Grail. “We already got one” cry the custard tart makers of England (with their short-crust pastry and nutmeg sprinkling) and the French (with their egg enhanced crème pattisierie and glazed fruits).** Not so: this custard tart is truly divine. A heavenly blending of light puff pastry that cracks as your teeth hit each layer of air pocket followed by flaky crispness; and dense and sticky custard, skin blotched and blistered, custard smooth and thick. Somehow the custard remains un-curdled and yet the pastry achieves crispness: a miracle given the tendency of custard to split at high temperatures and pastry to remain sulkily chewy in anything less than a scorching hot oven.

No wonder, then, that this tart was born in a convent, bought to life, as the story would have it, by nuns (or possibly monks) of the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos in Belém district of Lisbon. Exactly when they were first made it is not known. What is known is that the Monastery sold the tarts to the local people and travelers and developed a loyal – or possibly addicted - following. Following the 1820 revolution, like so many others, the monastery was closed (probably around 1837). The recipe, however, was a commodity: sold to the local bakery, who secretly guards the original recipe to this day.***

Fine: but what happened to the nuns? Having sold their recipe (for how much?), where did they go? Curiosity eats away at me, more maddening that chasing the caffeine dragon. Their recipe: fixed at a point in time, still sold by the same bakery, in the shadow of the Monastery. The buildings of the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos, world heritage listed. But the lives of these original bakers: puff, like the pastry they perfected.

I have never eaten Pasteis de Belém. I may constantly settle for the Portuguese custard tart of the cafe-near-work. But I will be unsettled by the idea that these black-habited pastry makers drifted out of history. Anyone who has seen Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade will know that the journey is more important than the destination: searching for the Holy Grail is about the things we find out about ourselves, not the cup itself. So it begins again: with a virgin tart maker.

* Apparently, this is the Portuguese term for the Portuguese custard tart. As such, it is possible the most important phrase I know in Portuguese. Also the only phrase.
** It is vitally important that you try to imitate the atrocious French accent affected by John Clease in Monty Python and the Holy Grail when saying “we already got one”.
*** Their tarts are known as Pasteis de Belém (ie, pastries of Belém). The rest of us survive, when we can score, on the wonderful imitation: pasteis de nata (pastries of cream).


Pasteis de Nata: Portuguese Custard Tarts

Makes 12

Ingredients:

Pastry.
Egg custard.

I followed the recipe given at Not Quite Nigella (originally a Bill Granger recipe), as adapted below. Note – I thought this a little sweet, so next time I will play around with less sugar. I would also be interested to up the egg count. Note that Ms Elliott quite sensibly suggests using good quality bought puff pastry. I attempted to make my own.

Pre-heat the oven to extremely hot. I had mine on fan forced at 240ºc.

For the custard

3 egg yolks (as suggested by Ms Elliott, I used 2 yolks and 1 whole egg)
115g caster sugar
2 tbsp cornflour
230ml cream (I used cream, Ms Elliott successfully substitutes additional milk)
170ml Milk
2 tsp vanilla extract
300g rolled puff pastry (or one sheet of puff pastry)
3 strands saffron (my addition)
¼ tsp grated lemon rind (my addition)

Whisk the eggs, sugar and cornflour with beaters until smooth. Whisk in the milk and cream. Pour into a heavy based saucepan, add saffron and lemon rind. Gently heat until it starts to thicken to the consistency of thickened cream (I don’t like to boil custard, as I am terrified of splitting it, even when stabilised with cornflour).

Strain through a sieve into a heat proof bowl, then continue to heat the custard over a saucepan of simmering watering (ie, your basic “baine marie” or double boiler set up) until thick like, well, store bought custard or cake batter.

Set aside to cool (cover the surface with plastic wrap to stop a skin forming).

When cool, fill the pastry shells.

Pastry

If using a block of pastry, either store bought or home made, roll out so it is longish and narrowish. If using a square pastry sheet, cut in half and place one half on top of the other.

Roll the pastry into a cylinder along the long edge. Chill. Then slice into 1.5 cm rounds, then roll each of these rounds into a very thin flat circle, about 10-12 cm diameter . This gives the signature spiral pattern on the pastry shell. Line a muffin tin.

Fill the rounds to just below the rim with custard.

To cook

Place the tray in the top of the oven and cook for about 20-25 minutes. Do check – when the pastry is crispy and the tops have patches of brown they should be ready.

Important: leave to cool for a little while, so the custard can set.

Rough puff pastry

I have never before made pastry. I know there are chefs out there who laugh with derision at anyone who says this. There are home cooks who insist that you really must make real puff pastry, not (sneer) rough puff pastry. However I am humbly just a little bit pleased with myself for attempting even rough puff pastry (which was plenty challenging enough). It’s not difficult, just a little fiddly and quite time consuming. I tried a recipe from Maggie’s Harvest (by Maggie Beer) – paraphrased below.

450 g plain flour
450 g unsalted butter, chilled (cut into cubes, about 1.5cm)
250 ml chilled water
Pinch of salt (which I forgot)

Clean your kitchen bench. Then dump all the flour onto the bench (you will need to clean the bench again afterward).

Using a pastry scraper (which I don’t own, I used the blunt side of a butter knife, far from ideal) “cut” the butter into the flour. This essentially means, dump a few pieces of butter into the flour, mash/cut them into the flour with the “scraper”, then add a few more. Don’t be temped to use your fingers, this apparently melts the butter and opens a portal to the underworld. Repeat until all butter is used.

When all the butter is combined, add about 180 ml of water and quickly form into a dough. It should be quite firm. Do not “overwork” or let it get warm. Add a bit more water if you are really struggling to make it all come together.

Chill – ie wrap in plastic wrap and put in the fridge (or the freezer, if like me you are impatient. But this really isn’t a great recipe for the impatient. Unless you are trying to cultivate patience).

Cut the pastry into quarters or in half, depending on how much you need for your recipe. Working with one quarter (return the rest to the fridge/freezer) – roll out between two sheets of plastic wrap or baking paper into a longish strip (the length should be three times the width). This is easiest if you roll in one direction only. Fold in a ‘book fold’ – more pamphlet like (just look at the picture). Turn 90º, repeat. Turn again, repeat. If it starts getting soft, re-chill. After three turns(I may have gotton carried away and turned it four time) wrap up and chill.

(Then pour a drink or make a cup of tea and put your feet up).

To use, roll out the desired quantity of pastry to the desired thinness (again, between sheets of baking paper or plastic wrap - this also makes it easy to lift and drape over your pie tin or tarte tatin).

To cook, make sure you use a very hot oven (I crank mine to the hottest it will go, fan forced at 240ºc). A trick – pre-heat the oven (really, really pre-heat it) and also pre-heat a baking tray int he oven – sit the pie tin on top of the baking tray – it conducts the heat better to the bottom of the tin, helping to make it crispier. Cook pastry for about 20 minutes (maybe a little longer).

Put your muffin where your mouth is

I tend to dislike muffins. Too cakey. Too big. Too brick-like in the stomach. Stodgy. Too sweet. A generally unsatisfying snack.

I find it odd that people apparently like to eat them for breakfast.

But behind the pre-mix and bulk package monstrosities (I refer to both their hideousness and their size) hides the Platonic ideal-type muffin. This muffin has a softness and slight springy-ness about it. A crunch at the edges and a yielding denseness at the centre. It has a loose crumb, and a flavour that is more complex than simply refined sugar. It has a lightness that doesn’t taste like baking powder.

This muffin is lucky to last five minutes out of the oven.

I have discovered the secret of yoghurt.

There are lots of tricks and tips for making muffins. But addition of yoghurt (or buttermilk or sour cream) is genius. It acts as a leavening agent, particularly effective when combined with baking powder (or good, fresh self raising flour). The mixture tends to foam ever so slightly, like a yeast starter for bread, if you let it sit for twenty minutes or so before you put it in the oven. (A good thing to know, given that I forgot to preheat the oven, and had to wait anyway ...).

The result? Perfectly fluffy, slightly sticky-with-fruit, steaming soft muffins.

Impossible to resist, even for a harden muffin sceptic like me. Hot, and topped with a dollop of whipped ricotta or a generous smear of faintly sour butter.

For afternoon tea, not breakfast.

Yoghurt muffins (featuring chocolate chips and banana)

Makes 2 dozen.

4 mashed bananas (or about 3 ½ cups of chopped, mashed or grated fruit. Apple? Peaches? Plums? Mango? Berries? Probably not melon or citrus.)
2 cups natural yoghurt (no added sugar) – goat or sheep yoghurt gives a beautiful flavour (or use cows’ milk yoghurt)
1 ¼ cups oil (I use extra virgin olive oil)
2 eggs
3 ½ cups self raising flour
1 cup raw sugar
½ cup dark chocolate chips (optional)
½ cup chopped pecans or walnuts (optional – try difference nuts with different fruits. I love almonds with peaches)
½ tsp nutmeg
½ tsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to 180ºc. Grease muffin tins (I use silicon muffin trays, which don’t need greasing).

Mash bananas with yoghurt, oil and eggs (you could even put it all in a blender).

Roughly stir in the rest of the ingredients – do not over mix or beat. Just use a folding action to make sure there are no lumps of flour.

Spoon into muffin trays – fill to just below the top of the trays. Cook for about 25 minutes or until brown on top and firm when poked. Allow to cool for about 5-10 minutes, then turn out on a cake rack.

Eat at least 1 immediately, warm with whipped ricotta, honey and nutmeg. Or butter. Or a spoonful of sweetened yoghurt.

Being humbled by pie

Pie is easy.* You can buy it frozen and pop it in the oven. That pie is humble: it doesn’t ask for much, doesn’t expect much, doesn’t particularly offer much either, just sits quietly in the freezer, then the oven, then disappears quickly without much comment.**

Eating fancy meals can be demanding: there is an extra attentiveness we tend to approach a glamorous dish with, as opposed to the unwinding we allow ourselves when we sit down for a traditional home cooked meal. Something intimidating, something attention-grabbing about a restaurant meal. It is special food for a reason. We hesitate, we pause, we pay that momentary respect, that intake of breath, that thoughtfulness.

The direction of the breath we take is pivotal, I think, in defining the difference. Restaurant food: intake. Wonder. Home cooking: exhale. Relaxation.

A few weeks ago I attempted a recipe from Thomas Keller’s cookbook The French Laundry. It was pretty complicated, involving making duck stock and then a reduced duck sauce. Creamed corn, which involved pureeing fresh corn kernels, then straining them, then cooking them, then adding whole blanched corn kernels. Oh, and blanched silverbeet wrapped skinned duck breast, cooked sous vide (ie, wrapped in plastic then poached).

The meal took a whole day, and was an exercise in peeling, precision dicing, watching, skimming, straining ... The end result was delicious, but damn, it would want to be for the effort it took to produce one dish.

Taking this recipe as a starting point, I thought about pie. What if you took the basic components - duck, mushroom, corn - and made pie? Mixed everything up together? Mushrooms fried with roughly chopped leeks and thyme. Poached the chicken (that way, if it doesn’t work, I’ve only lost my investment in chicken, and not a duck). The diced brunoise is transformed into diced vegetables. The creamed corn and reduced poaching liquid from the chicken becomes the binding gravy. From fancy restaurant food to rustic, home-style comfort food.

Easier to eat.

Not easier to make.

It took me nearly as long to make the pie as it did to make the Keller recipe. Poaching the chicken the night before. Reducing the stock. Chopping the vegetables. Cooking the sauce. Frying the mushrooms. Pulling the chicken off the carcass. Baking the pie. (Thank goodness for store-bought pastry!).

But there was a gentleness about the process – a shift in the expectation. This pie didn’t need to be perfect. It didn’t need to wow anyone. It didn’t have to look like a jewel, be perfectly sized or shaped. It didn’t really rely on split second timing. When we sat down to eat, we breathed out.

* ‘Easy as pie’ doesn’t describe the ease of creation, but rather the pleasure of eating, the idea being that good things are also easy to like – easy on the eye, for example. ‘Easy as pie’ comes to us from American English (check out Mark Twain and all the pie references).

** Humble pie is little bit older – from the old English ‘numble’ or ‘umble’ pie – pie made from deer offal. Perhaps also eaten by the lowly of station. By a phonetic slight of hand: ‘umble pie (think of Michael Cain saying it). Humble pie. Numble pie eaten by the humble.

Chicken, corn and mushroom pie, a play in four acts

Act 1: The poaching of the chicken (the day before)

2 1 kg chickens (whole or with thighs removed – depend what fits into the pot)
1 carrot, cut in half
1 brown onion, peeled and cut in half
6 sprigs of parley
10 sprigs of fresh thyme
2 bay leaves

Place all ingredients in a large saucepan. Cover with cold water. Bring to boil, simmer for about 20 minutes. Cover with a lid and turn off the heat. Allow to cool, then refrigerate overnight (I put the whole saucepan in the fridge.

The next day, scrape the fat from the top of the stock. Remove the chicken, discard the skin and pull the meat off the bones. Shred the meat and set aside.

Strain the poaching liquid and reserve.

Act 2: A kernel of corn

Poaching liquid from the chicken
Kernels from 3 cobs corn
2 carrots – cut in ½ cm dice
200 g celeriac – cut in ½ cm dice
1 leek, white part cut into 1 cm dice
¼ cup polenta

Bring the chicken poaching liquid the boil in a medium sized saucepan and reduce to about 4 cups.

Puree the 2/3 of the corn kernels with a cup of poaching liquid. Strain and discard the solids. Return the puree to the stock, add the polenta and slowly cook until it starts to foam. Add the remaining corn kernels and diced vegetables and continue to cook until the sauce thickens and the vegetables are just cooked.

Set aside.

Act 3: Mushrooms

½ kg mushrooms (I used field mushrooms, but any combination will be fine), thickly sliced
2 leeks, chopped into 1 cm dice
2 tbsp chopped thyme
1 tbsp chopped oregano
1 bay leaf
2 tbsp olive oil

Throw everything into a non stick fry pan and cook until the mushroom are soft, shaking the pan occasionally to prevent sticking. The mushrooms will release liquid, which will evaporate.

Act 4: the assembly of the pie

Shredded chicken
Thickened corn gravy with vegetables
Fried mushrooms
Pastry (enough to line and lid your pie dish)


Heat the oven to 180ºc

Mix the shredded chicken, mushrooms and corn mixture together. Taste and season (note – nothing has had any salt or pepper added yet).

Line the pie dish with pastry, fill with the pie filling, cover with a pastry lid. Brush with egg wash or milk.

Place into the oven, and cook for about half an hour (if the top starts to brown, cover with foil whilst the pastry base continues to cook).

A is for Apple, B is Boring, C is for Crumble

Apples are credited with keeping doctors away, impressing educators and proving the effects of gravity. Although mythological credited with the fall of man – or more precisely, the fall of woman, nothing is more mundane than the apple.

A sensible, serious fruit.

Perhaps contributing to the boringness of apples is the fact that they almost never feature as the stars of haute cuisine. Apples-as-dessert tend to be home-cooking’s domain: apple snow, apple pie (oh, tarte tatin), apple crumble, stewed apples, apple butter, apple tea-cake. Cooked apples are for eating in the kitchen by the fire with a cup of tea.

It is difficult to imagine the apple being an object of excitement or desire – presented alongside option such as figs or mangoes or strawberries, the ever-available, the cold-storage apple is likely to be eaten without thought. So someone (we’ll call her Eve) jumping up and down, squealing “COX’S ORANGE PIPPINS” over and over again would probably be a bit weird. And embarrassing for the people around me. I mean Eve.

Despite their year-round availability, apples are seasonal. Most varieties arrive at their peak during the autumn months – and some of the rarer varietals have very short season indeed. Hence the excitement about the Cox’s Orange Pippin – the most common ‘red’ apple in the UK, it is almost impossible to find in Australia (not at all suited to our growing conditions). When fresh, it is crisp and sweet and tangy and quintessentially the perfect eating apple. It does not store well, and is therefore to be jealously and joyously consumed for the few short weeks of its season.

Of course, we live in a world where everything is available all the time, and everything is grown for green-picking, bruise-free transportation, long-storage and slow ripening. Our fruit is harder and sweeter than nature intended. Stored apples tend to lose their crispness and tart edge-of-sourness. Yawn.

‘So’, whispers the snake (in a place where the supermarket is mysteriously also the garden of Eden) – ‘the autumnal apple is the tastiest, the crispest, simultaneously the sweetest and tartest apple you will find. The fruit at the other times of the year will not satisfy the same way this new-season apple will. The supermarket tricks you with the ever-present cold-storage apple. Eat the apple as God intended’. Possibly heresy, but the apple deserves to be made sexier, more mysterious, more desirable.

There is something honest, something wholesome, about home-made apple crumble. It’s rustic. It’s old-fashioned. It’s stupidly simple to make and won’t win awards for beauty. Apple crumble is about home and homeliness.

Don’t make a small amount – there’s no point. Fill a deep, deep pie dish and top with spiced crumble. Fill the whole street with the smell of cooking apples and brown sugar. Entice your neighbours in for a cup of tea and a bite of the apple.

Apple Crumble

Home-cooking classic, with a hint of exotic spiciness. Serves 6-8.

Filling
1.5 kg apples (use a hard and very tart green skinned cooking apple)
1 lemon – juice and rind
¼ cup castor sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp ground cardamom
½ tsp nutmeg

Crumble
100 gm unsalted butter
¼ cup mixed peel
1 cup flour
2/3 cup rolled oats
1/3 cup chopped blanched almonds
1/3 chopped pecans
1/3 cup almond meal
2/3 cup brown sugar
1 tsp ground cardamom
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp mixed spice
½ tsp nutmeg

Grease a large baking dish with a little butter.

For the filling: peel and quarter the apples, then slice thinly (about ½ cm). Toss with the sugar, spices, lemon rind and juice. Tip into baking dish.

For the crumble: with a bar mix or food processor, blend the butter with the mixed peel.
In a large bowl, mix the butter mixture with the dry ingredients (I use my hands) – be careful not to over-mix, the idea is to have a very crumbly mixture – hence the name apple crumble.

Sprinkle the crumble mixture over the apple filling.

Bake in a moderate oven for about 40 minutes, until the topping is crisp and the apples cooked through (some will retain it’s shape and the outer edges will go mushy, that’s part of its charm).

Serve with a cup of tea. And custard or ice-cream.

Pistachios, yoghurt soup and unchartered territory

Kitchen-wise, there are things I am good at. And there are areas in which I have, shall we say, room for improvement. Deep frying. Pastry making. Knife sharpening.

There are cuisines I am unfamiliar with, things I have never eaten before, ingredients I don’t use, techniques I haven’t mastered. For example: Turkish food, yoghurt soup, fresh pistachios, frying.

Cooking within the realm of the known creates a freedom to take risks. The basic flavours, structures, techniques are given. Garlic and olive oil for Italian, fish sauce and mint for Vietnamese, soy sauce and five spice for Chinese, butter and tarragon for French, paprika and tomatoes for Spanish. For me, comfortable innovation takes place within those pre-existing and familiar confines, like a variation on a theme.

The key is, of course, knowing what the parameters are. Being familiar enough with something to be able to define it, without slavishly recreating it.

I’d eaten a lot of Vietnamese food and never really enjoyed it and certainly never attempted to cook any at home. Until I took a holiday to Vietnam. And was utterly astounded by the flavours, the variety, the freshness. In situ, the food suddenly made sense. And tasted phenomenal. In Hanoi I took four days of cooking classes. I ate and actually enjoyed fried rice, of all things. I explored the produce markets with the teaching chef. I tasted, I questioned, I understood. I came home and cooked nothing but Vietnamese food for months.

Tonight I made what I think was perfectly acceptable yoghurt soup. I’m not sure that I enjoyed it. I am sure that I don’t understand it. I have no context for it, no benchmark, no sense of how it is supposed be consumed, what accompanies it. Despite a familiarity with the cuisines at the boarders of Turkey, I was surprised at how lost I felt.

The only things I know about Turkish food: eggplants, pistachios and orange blossom water.

Perhaps, a little ambitious then, to think I could just invent, out of this exceedingly low knowledge base, another little snack to bulk out the soup. And a little naive to expect that every new idea will always arrive, perfect and whole

I started with eggplant. Egg shaped striped pale mauve and cream and banana shaped dark purple eggplants. Originally I just planned to split them in halt, brush with oil and char grill. Then, I thought, stuffed eggplant. Genius. Which is where things started to unravel.

Genuine fresh pistachios, just picked from the tree, fleshy outer skin still soft and attached. Saffron. Orange rind. Mint. Dill. Fresh chilli. Toasted and ground fennel seeds. And shellfish – scallops and crayfish. Oh, I could have used ground lamb or goat. But the delicacy of the seafood to match the lightness of the yoghurt soup appealed.

This turned into a fiddly, messy and ultimately less than satisfying meal. Sticky filling that crumbled in the fry pan. Rounds of eggplant that started to burn before cooking through. The floral taste of saffron too sweet for the fresh sea water taste of the shellfish.

But in the remnants and debris spread across my kitchen is the possibility of improvement. I know now, a little more than I knew before. Bind the mince seafood with egg yoke. Where I shallow fried, I probably should have deep fried – this would have kept the parcels intact better, letting them float in bubbling oil whist they firmed. Eggplant takes longer than shellfish to cook – maybe slice the eggplant more thinly? Better next time, perhaps, to make little cigar shaped filo pasty rolls with the filling, and serve a separate plate of char grilled eggplant (which I adore with sea salt sprinkled over). Or stuff the eggplants with lamb, and cook in the oven until the lamb is cooked and the eggplant is soft?

I know more now than I did then.

Next time, however, I might follow a recipe. Just until I get the hang of it.