Food for Thought: Short-cut Lemon Tarte

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Short-cut Lemon Tarte

I made the pastry with a blend of all-purpose and whole wheat flour, which gave the tarte shell a certain je ne sais qois.

Some of you may recall a lemon tarte recipe posted. Nov. 18, 2009.....very French, very fancy. Here's one that is significantly easier to make, tastes just about the same and does not involve the purchase of a lot of anything.

The last time I visited, my local grocery store had jars of ready-made lemon curd on sale; this was too tempting to pass up. Plus, I just happened to have a disc of pastry sitting in my freezer. (See post dated Oct 12, 2009 for instruction on making good old Canadian-style pastry). Put the two together and you have a lemon tarte.

Ingredients:

- enough pastry for a single bottom crust

- 2 bottles of ready-made lemon curd- about 2.5 cups

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F.

Roll out the pastry to form a circle slightly larger that the bottom of a 9.5 inch pie plate or tart tin. Fit the pastry into the baking dish, ensuring that the edges go up the sides about an inch. Cover the pastry with a piece of tin foil and fill the foil with dried beans; the weight will keep the pastry from puffing. Bake for about 10 minutes, then remove from the oven briefly while you lift off the beans and foil. Turn the oven down to 375 degrees. Prick the pastry all over with the tines of a fork, and return it to the oven for another 10 to 15 minutes or until it's thoroughly baked and a light golden brown in colour. FYI: the pastry will likely have shrunk and slightly pulled away from the edge of the baking dish at this point.

Fill the baked pastry crust with the lemon curd. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Editorial note: Fresh fruit such as strawberries, raspberries, cherries or blueberries would look very elegant if arranged on top of this lemon tarte.

Dare I try to make a fancy design on top of this tarte with a paper doily and confectioner's sugar? It depends on whether I can find a doily in some random drawer in my house; am not going to the dollar store.

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'To Cut the Mustard'

Meaning: To succeed; to come up to expectations.

Origin: Why cutting mustard was chosen as an example of high quality is unclear. Some possibilities allude to the literal difficulty of cutting mustard;for example: - Mustard seed, which is hard to cut with a knife on account of being small and shiny. - Mustard plants, which are tough and stringy and grow densely. - Culinary mustard, which is cut (diluted) and made more palatable by the addition of vinegar. - Dried mustard paste, which was reputedly used to coat meat and then dried to form a crust.

The love of olive oil...

I finally figured it out...why I love olive oil so much. It was the television programming I was exposed to as a child. See the following description, from the online Encylclopedia Britanica, of a character I admired. I lusted after the large boxes of chocolates she would consume in one sitting.

Tall, gangly, big-footed Olive Oyl, whose black hair was almost always tied back in a bun, first co-starred with her brother, Castor Oyl, in 1919 in the newspaper comic strip Thimble Theatre. For the strip’s first 10 years, she was the girlfriend of Castor’s layabout pal, Ham Gravy, and her jealousy over his wandering eye fueled many comedic episodes. However, soon after the introduction of Popeye in 1929, Ham was written out of the strip as Olive found true love with the salty sailor. In this coupling, she was the more fickle character, as from time to time she became drawn to suitors with more education and refinement than the scrappy, wisecracking Popeye, though he always won her back. Popeye rescued Olive Oyl hundreds of times from the nefarious bully Bluto.

A Funky Review of a Funky Cookbook by a Funky Girl

“Bite me speaks to more than your stomach,” reads an excerpt on one of the first pages of the newly released cookbook, Bite me, by sassy sisters Julie Albert and Lisa Gnat. From the tongue in cheek, retro photographs that grace many of the pages to the aptly chosen, often perfectly crude quotations; Bite me is a cookbook that also speaks to your sense of humour and playfulness.
The book is decidedly un-pretentious, which is exactly what the sisters had in mind when creating the book, and exactly what appeals to me as a twenty something with not much experience in the kitchen. At the book’s launch on October 6th at an Indigo location in Toronto, Julie was the first to boast that many of the props in the self-published book came from the dollar store. The price- perfect. The look- genius. The props convey just the right amount of kitsch and comedy.
Heather Reisman, CEO of Indigo and famous as Heather of ‘Heather’s Picks’ obviously saw the same genius in these first time authors. The book is now the first cookbook to ever be chosen as a ‘Heather’s Pick’ at Chapters and Indigo stores nationwide.
I personally know Julie Albert, as I tutor her adorable, charming son Benjy, here in Toronto, Ontario. Julie is most often seen looking flawless, but approachable- laid back in jeans or yoga pants, shuffling her kids from one activity to another. She is exactly the involved Mom who wants delicious, easy, home cooking with a twist, to feed to her family. That was the goal for the sisters- no mushroom foam, no truffle scented this or that. Just fun, easy variations on your favourites- using simple ingredients with a dash of wit, and some of Lisa and Julie’s own kitchen secrets. Oh- and a man with his head stuffed down a woman’s shirt. You have to buy the book to take a look at that last one.
I am buying the book for all the cooks in my family this Christmas. Even for a cook with many books, this one is a standout- almost more coffee table material than shelved with other cookery bibles.
If you need a giggle- go buy it. If you need a recipe for pecan crusted lime chicken- buy it. To the self-professedly “not so sweet, tiny-bit salty” sisters- great job. I forkin’ love it.

Jessie Bass-West

Link to Bite me http://www.bitemecookbook.com/

Pages

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Short-cut Lemon Tarte

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