Category: lemon

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book review cream egg food lemon

marco pierre white’s lemon tart

marco pierre white's lemon tart

I recently got hold of a copy of Marco Pierre White’s White Heat book from the library. It is a cookbook but really it’s a capture of a time and a place: when Marco was on top of the culinary world and the absolute hottest thing in chefs and cookery. I hadn’t read it before; I devoured it an hour and immediately ordered a copy for myself.

The photography, all black and white, is still crisp, clear and full of motion and emotion. The words from Marco are full of his cool directness. The recipes are surprisingly good; unpretentious and focused on celebrating a core ingredient. One stood out to me: Marco Pierre White’s lemon tart.

As I read it, I suddenly remember it seems familiar: there’s a very similar one in Heston at Home that I’ve made before.

It should come as no surprise there is a similarity. The backgrounds of Marco and Heston overlap. Heston’s first job at a restaurant was a week spent at Raymond Blanc’s Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons. They struck up a friendship that stuck. While Heston ploughed his unique furrow Marco did the traditional route of moving up from kitchen to kitchen learning from Pierre Koffman, Albert and Michel Roux Sr and Raymond Blanc as mentioned. The classic French method was drummed into him, and while Heston studied at home it was the French classics he drilled. Heston even spent time at White’s Canteen to learn how to run a team of chefs before opening The Fat Duck.

Marco’s tart

I made the lemon tart immediately. It is thick and custardy, very satisfying. Though he does recommend grilling the top to brulee the sugar topping, I found it hard to protect the pastry from burning – I would cover the pastry in foil if trying again. As a recipe itself it also lacks crucial detail. We’re told to mix the filling ingredients – but until when? Just combined? Beaten smooth? And there’s no indication what size pie dish you should be using. The depth of the filling means you can’t tell when it will cook convincingly. I’m all for improvising in the kitchen – an advocate in fact – but with pastry dishes precision is everything.

Heston’s tart on the left, Marco’s on the right

I couldn’t help but compare Marco and Heston’s tarts. Heston has an unnecessarily fussy pastry recipe, but has the smart idea to part-set the custard over a bain marie before transferring to the oven. And in classic Heston style check the set temperature with a probe to get consistent results. And to avoid burning use a blowtorch to finish.

Overall I found Heston’s far more enjoyable, more what I expect of a lemon tart. The lemon had more zing, and the filling itself is unctuous and creamy.

If I was to make it again, I’d use whatever pastry recipe you are happy with, or even buy a dcent pre-made case, then go Heston’s method for the filling. It’s dead easy, just warm things in a bowl over the hob, then pour into the case. You will need a probe thermometer.

Both great recipes, but fascinating to explore what makes the differences.

Want another view? Jay Rayner tries Marco’s tart

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marco pierre white's lemon tart

Course Dessert
Cuisine French
Keyword brulee
Prep Time 45 minutes
Cook Time 40 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 25 minutes
Servings 8 slices

Ingredients

For the tart case:

  • 500 g plain flour
  • 175 g icing sugar
  • 250 g butter diced
  • grated zest of 1 lemon
  • grains from 1 vanilla pod
  • 1½ eggs
  • 50 g sieved icing sugar

For the lemon filling:

  • 9 eggs
  • 400 g caster sugar
  • 5 lemons zest of 2 and juice of all 5
  • 250 ml double cream

Instructions

For the pastry:

  • Pre-heat the oven to 180C. Sieve the flour and icing sugar and rub in the butter.
  • Mix in the lemon zest and vanilla seeds.
  • Beat the eggs and add to the mix. Knead the mixture with fingers, then wrap in clingfilm and leave to rest for 30 minutes in the fridge.
  • Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured surface to a size just large enough to fill the flan tin or ring to be used.
  • Using either a greased flan ring on a greased baking sheet, or a greased flan tin with a removable base, fold the dough into it. Gently ease the dough into the corners of the tin, ensuring a good 1cm/2in overhang. Do not cut this off.
  • Line the flan with greaseproof paper and fill with enough dry baking beans or lentils to ensure that the sides as well as the base are weighted. This helps give a good finished flan shape.
  • Bake in the oven for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, remove the beans and greaseproof paper and trim the overhang from the flan. Return the flan to the oven for a further 10 minutes.

For the lemon filling:

  • Whisk the eggs with the sugar and the lemon zest.
  • Stir in the lemon juice and then fold in the cream. Remove any froth from the top of the mixture.
  • Reduce the oven temperature to 120C.
  • Pour the cold filling into the hot pastry (this ensures that the pastry case will be sealed and hold the filling) and bake for 30 minutes in the oven.
  • Pre-heat a very hot grill.
  • Sieve the icing sugar over the tart as soon as it comes out of the oven and then flash it briefly under the grill to caramelize the sugar.

Video

Categories
chicken food garlic lemon onion oregano paprika parsley potatoes

chimichurri chicken with patatas bravas

England may be out of the World Cup, but there’s still lots of excuses to throw a football party. For people who enjoy a cooking challenge, it presents opportunities to burrow through the regional cookbooks and get inspired. Will you serve the Nigerian jollof rice? German Bratwurst? Australian shrimp? Ghanaian fufu?

Here’s a pair of great Latin-flavoured dishes in celebration of Argentina and Spain. First up is a butterflied chicken breast bursting with vibrant lemon and garlic, partnered with a herby, sharp chimichurri sauce. And as a foil for for that, some fiery patatas bravas made with Britain’s best Jersey Royals.

These dishes scale up really well for a party, football-flavoured or otherwise: the chicken is a breast per person, and I make mine on a George Foreman grill so there’s always a couple on the go. You can make miles of the chimichurri sauce and leave it out for people to help themselves. And you can make a big vat of patatas bravas which is perfectly good at room temperature.

The brining stage for the chicken isn’t essential; but it does help keep the chicken marvellously moist and is another stage at which you can add layers of flavour.

Want more football-themed party food ideas? Check out Waitrose’s page here. My recipes are inspired by theirs:

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chimichurri chicken with patatas bravas

Author Gary @ BigSpud

Ingredients

For the brine:

  • Water mixed with 8% salt
  • 2 tablespoons golden syrup
  • 10 black peppercorns
  • 1 star anise
  • 4 skinless chicken breast fillets

For the chicken:

  • 4 cloves garlic roughly chopped
  • 2 teaspoons smoked paprika
  • Grated zest of 1 lemon
  • 1 red onion roughly chopped
  • 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

For the chimichurri Sauce:

  • Pinch chilli flakes
  • 25 g flat leaf parsley roughly chopped
  • 15 g oregano roughly chopped
  • 750 g Jersey Royal Potatoes halved
  • 1 onion thinly sliced
  • 190 g chorizo diced
  • 6 tomatoes roughly chopped

For the patatas bravas:

  • 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
  • Squeeze of lemon juice
  • 25 g flat-leaf parsley roughly chopped

Instructions

  • Combine the brine ingredients and leave the chicken brining for 6 hours. Drain and pat dry when ready.
  • For the chimichurri sauce, bash all the ingredients together in a pestle and mortar. Set aside, seasoning with a little salt and a good grinding of black pepper, adding a little olive oil to bring together.
  • Cook the potatoes in a large pan of boiling water for 15 minutes until tender. Meanwhile, in a large frying pan, heat the oil and cook the onion and chorizo together for 10 minutes. Drain the potatoes and add to the pan with the chorizo and cook for a further 10 minutes.
  • Place the chicken on clingfilm over a chopping board and slice through each fillet horizontally, making sure not to cut all the way through, then open out. Add another layer of clingfilm and bash lightly with a rolling pin to flatten further. Scatter over the garlic, paprika, lemon zest then rub in with a little olive oil and salt & pepper.
  • Grill, barbecue or fry your chicken until thoroughly cooked through. Back at your potatoes, add the tomatoes, chilli and paprika and cook for a further 5 minutes. Squeeze over lemon juice and scatter over parsley.

 

Waitrose compensated me for this post and gave me some party stuff to play with.

Categories
cream creme fraiche egg food kitchen gadgets lemon pastry

heston blumenthal’s lemon tart

Hold on to your toques, this is a Blumenthal gadget-fest. Here’s a run-down of the Heston kitchen toys employed in this recipe:

That’s a hell of a list. The odd one out in this list is the Kitchen Wizz Pro, a beast of a food processor, but more on that in a future post. I’ve also used my trusty chef’s knife, easily the best knife I’ve ever used. Most of them are Salter’s / HoMedics to celebrate the launch of their new range of Heston gadgets. It’s fair to say they’re a mixed bag.

The initial range of Heston By Salter tools are all solid: the probe thermometer, kitchen timer, fridge thermometer, oven thermometer, measuring jug, scales; all good. Some of the newer items feel superfluous. First up the adjustable rolling pin. It comes with discs that adjust the height of the pin from the surface. Genius! I was looking forward to this. As someone who is mostly terrible at pastry the ability to roll out to a consistent thickness really appealed to me. Unfortunately the pastry stuck immediately to the pin and made a complete mess. After prodding it for a while I transferred it to the pastry dish for baking and rolled it up loosely around the pin. Again it all stuck to the pin and essentially turned my smooth-plasticine dough to a patchwork quilt. Just look at the pastry in the picture, that’s supposed to be 3mm but it’s more like a centimetre! Very disappointing.

The whisk is much better, being well-balanced, sturdy and comfortable to hold when whisking an egg custard over a bain marie. The measuring spoons are a cute gimmick, in that you slide the compartment to the right measurement (e.g. 1 teaspoon, ½ tablespoon) and then drag a little lid over the powder to level it off. But a couple of things bothered me: my fingers were a little greasy from handling butter and I just couldn’t work it without putting everything down, washing hands and re-measuring. And I can’t get past the price: £17.99 RRP for two spoons when the same thing is achieved with a £1 (or less) set of plastic measuring spoons available anywhere, with the help of any knife for levelling.

Rounding out the collection are the spatulas which are quickly becoming two of my favourite things in the kitchen: with one curved end for sculpting and smoothing, and a firmer end for flipping and scraping. I use a lot of non-stick bakeware, frying pans and saucepans so having something to poke at the edges of something to flip it over is really handy. Again though I have to wince at the price: £17.99 for two spatulas isn’t great value.

All the equipment in the range is well made and thoughtfully designed, but these items are just not as “must have” as the original kitchen gadgets. They’d make great gifts though.

I used all these tools and more in making Heston’s lemon tart. There’s an awful lot of Heston in this; he spent years at the Fat Duck perfecting the ‘wobble’ in his cakes. It comes down to temperature – a tart at 70°C is perfectly set. And of course, he’s right. It’s a brilliant dessert, and the probe thermometer is the most essential gadget of them all. Just one niggle: serving with creme fraiche is a complete waste of time. Totally gets lost against the lemon flavour – don’t bother.

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Heston Blumenthal's lemon tart

Servings 12 people

Ingredients

For the pastry:

  • 120 g icing sugar
  • 3 large egg yolks
  • 300 g plain flour
  • 150 g unsalted butter
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla paste
  • Zest of ½ a lemon grated

For the filling:

  • 9 large eggs
  • 1 large egg yolk
  • Finely grated zest and juice of 5 lemons
  • 300 g double cream
  • 390 g caster sugar

To serve:

  • 80 g caster sugar
  • Creme fraiche

Instructions

  • Start with the pastry: blitz the icing sugar and yolks together and set aside. In a mixer mix the flour, butter and salt until it resembles breadcrumbs. Add the vanilla, lemon and yolk mixture and continue to mix until you have a smooth, soft dough. Mould into a rectangle and allow to rest in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
  • Preheat the oven to 180°C. After resting, roll the pastry to 3mm (ha ha) and line it in your 20cm tart tin. Prick with a fork all over and freeze for 30 minutes. Blind bake the base for 40 minutes and trim off the excess pastry. Drop the oven to 120°C.
  • Place the eggs and egg yolks in a bain marie and whisk together until it reaches 62°C (mine took about 10 minutes). At this point strain through a sieve, remove the bubbles from the surface with a metal spoon and pour into the pastry case. Bake until the filling reaches 70°C. Allow to cool to room temperature.
  • When ready to serve, sprinkle over the caster sugar and caramelise with a blow torch. Serve with creme fraiche if you like.

Video

Categories
food lemon olives pork

lemon and black pepper olive pork

My family can’t get enough of olives. So when Olives from Spain sent me a bunch of ingredients to try to create a marinade for olives I set to it right away. There was an almost embarrassing selection of things to try, but I kept going back to, of all things, the lemon. Paired with it’s old friend, black pepper and just a hint of clove to reinforce the spice this works lovely with fatty pork. If you try it, make sure the sugar is on hand to help round out the flavours.

Lemon and black pepper pork steaks (serves 2):

Zest and juice of ½ a lemon

1 teaspoon black peppercorns

Pinch of sugar

About 10 Spanish black olives, halved

1 clove

2 pork shoulder steaks

  1. Put the lemon, sugar and peppercorns in a pestle and mortar and crush lightly so the peppercorns are coarse. Mix well with the olives and clove and taste – depending on your olives you may need a pinch of salt and / or sugar to balance it out. Add a dash of olive oil and leave to stand for an hour uncovered.
  2. Heat a griddle pan to pretty darn hot and the oven on to 200°C. Lay your pork steaks on a chopping board and slice most of the way through horizontally, so you have a meaty book. Discarding the clove, stuff the pork with the olive mix, press down firmly with your hand and add a pinch of salt to the surface of the pork. Put on to the hot griddle.
  3. After 4 minutes one side should be cooked, so turn over and put into the oven. After 8 minutes turn the oven off and leave for a further 5 minutes, then serve. Great with potato gratin and some greens.
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