I just wanted to say thankyou for all your kind and encouraging comments on my last post.

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One of Phill’s favourite desserts are those little egg custard tarts you can buy from supermarkets. They are beautifully yellow in a little pastry case, with nutmeg sprinkled on top and they are usually delicious. However, we bought some last week and while we were eating them, we realised there was just something lacking. I found them to taste watery. We were disappointed and I decided I was going to try to make my own.

After a quick internet search, I discovered most egg custard recipes called for nine eggs and I only had four on hand. Luckily, I found a recipe that asked for three, so that’s the one I went with. It seemed simple enough, with only a few ingredients: three eggs, two cups of milk, two tablespoons of caster sugar and a cap of vanilla essence (I used extract).

For the pastry I used Pampas pastry cases, bought from the freezer section of my supermarket:

They require cooking at 160 for fan forced, or 180 for regular oven, for ten minutes, then allow to cool. The thing I noticed about them was how shallow they were. Since my custard mixture was quite thin (perhaps I should have somehow made it thicken?) I couldn’t fit much of it into the tart cases because it would quickly overflow. Is that what I get for being lazy and buying pre-made tarts? Perhaps.

Straight out of the packet, they’re quite yellow and raw. It’s recommended that you leave the alfoil cases on while cooking – I guess this might be partly so they won’t collapse? I’m so paranoid about these fragile cases – even while at the shops, I was willing the cashier to pack them separately so nothing would squash them (and he did, thankyou!) and the only casualty was one with a tiny bit of the crust missing – nothing too severe and it was obviously damage that had occured while in the bag.

After cooking, they are paler with a lovely crisp crust – YUM! I could eat them straight away, but I had to be patient and let them cool before filling them with the lovely egg custard. You can see in the photo how shallow they are. I had literally just started pouring when they began to overflow through the dimples in the crust, dammit.

I realised I had a lot of mixture left over, so I grabbed a sheet of puff pastry from the freezer and a quiche dish from the cupboard and made another pie. I realised we’d be having egg custard tarts for a few days (not that there’s anything wrong with that!). I pre-cooked the puff pastry for a few minutes before adding the custard mixture and returning to the oven for 15 minutes. It came out really nicely and the deepness of the dish meant the custard mixture was more substantial.

Oh my goodness, these were delicious! The nutmeg on top absolutely made them – added that extra flavour. I really enjoyed them, expect next time I’ll have to make my own pastry so I can fit more of the egg custard in, because while they tasted lovely, it was mainly the tart case flavour with a little egg custard and nutmeg, instead of the other way around. The puff pastry tart came out nicely too:

They were just so yummy and home-made, not like the watery mass-produced tarts you buy at the supermarkets. Phill asked why mine weren’t as yellow as the ones in the store and I thought perhaps they add a colour to make theirs look more appealing? Either way, mine were better hands-down (and that’s saying something, since I’m not the world’s most confident or capable cook!).

EGG CUSTARD TARTS
from Best Recipes (link also includes pastry recipe, which I didn’t use)

Ingredients:

3 eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
2 tablespoons caster sugar
2 cups milk

Method:

1. Whisk eggs, vanilla and sugar in bowl until combined
2. Heat milk until hot, then quickly whisk into egg mixture
3. Pour the custard into pastry case and cook for 15 minutes (for one large tart or about 5-10 for smaller tarts)
4. Sprinkle custard with nutmeg and cook for a further 15 minutes (once again for larger tart or about 5 minutes for smaller tarts)
5. Refrigerate until cold

Enjoy!

Sometimes I throw together a lunch that looks so delicious and yum that I just have to blog about it. That’s normal, right? You’ve done that before?  This particular lunch was freshly made BLT English muffins with mayonnaise and everything was just so crisp and fresh and delicious.

Look at how perfect that looks? And if you want a close-up…

Look at that mayonnaise ready to gloop down the sides, yum! The stemmy bit of the lettuce doesn’t look too appealing but I enjoy eating it – it’s a bit sweeter than the leaves. Of course, if there’s a big stem it’s often bitter so I’ll throw that out. I’m going through a mesculin mix phase – much more exciting than the normal cos or ice-burg lettuce.

Mmm bacon! The only thing these muffins were missing was a thin slice of cheese. I have a love/hate relationship with cheese – I go on or off it really easily. That day I was keen for cheese but we’d run out. Boo.

At this point I realised I was rather hungry so I put down the camera and ate my lunch.

It was awwwwesome.

P.S – I recently adopted an iPhone which means you can expect more food blogging from me, since now I’ll always have a semi-decent camera on hand (and won’t be able to forget to take it!).

I confess – I am a fish & chips addict. I can’t go past a delicious dinner of crispy fried fish and crunchy chips, served with an aoli or tartare sauce and of course, green mushy peas, yum! So when Phill and I decided to travel to England, I knew I had to give myself a mission – to find the perfect fish & chips. Where else would I find this than in the pubs of England? I knew this mission would be risky – after all, I’d be hoping to get through numerous plates of fried food, but I just couldn’t help myself. The diet could start as soon as I was back in Australia. Until then, bring it on!

My first taste of real English fish & chips was at a pub in London. We ate lunch in the beer garden, which had a fantastic atmosphere. Sadly, the fish & chips were not impressive. As you might be able to see from the photo, the fish batter was extremely greasy, resulting in little pools of yellow-coloured grease on the plate. Now, I’m not shy of a little grease, but I do have my limits.

The fish was actually quite nice – inside the greasy batter was white, fluffy fish which tasted delicious. I ended up pulling the fish meat out of the batter so I could eat it while avoiding the oily casing. The mushy peas were wonderful – I think it’s almost impossible to ruin mushy peas. Almost.

The next fish & chips I tried was in Brighton, on Brighton Pier. While the pub we’d visited for the first round of fish & chips was quite out of the way,  down a random quiet street, Brighton Pier is a major tourist attraction so I was weary that the fish & chips were most likely going to be mass-produced and disappointing.

I wasn’t wrong.

Greasy fish, disappointing obviously re-heated chips and cold mushy peas that tasted old and flavourless. After a few minutes tackling this meal I decided I owed my body enough to stop eating fish & chips – all this grease was a little nauseating. I didn’t end up finding the best fish & chips in England, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there somewhere. I just didn’t stumble upon it, so let me ask you:

Where can I find the best fish & chips?

I generally do a grocery shop once every two weeks or so. Some women like to shop for clothes, or shoes  – I shop for groceries. I really enjoy it and I can spend a good hour wandering the aisles with my trolley (yes TROLLEY!) deciding whether we’re going to be healthy or naughty. Healthy usually wins. As an extra challenge, I always aim to bring home at least one item of food that we haven’t tried before.

The most recent “mysterious” item was… Junket.

What is Junket, you might ask? According to Wikipedia, Junket is a milk-based dessert made with sweetened milk and rennet, the digestive enzyme which curdles milk. Sounds delicious, right? Err… right?

I remember having Junket as a child once or twice – I believe a friend of my Mum’s brought it around and I remember it being delicious. I think it was frozen. I don’t know, it was a long time ago. I figured what’s the harm in buying some and giving it another go? Maybe Phill and I will love it. You don’t know unless you try!

Junket comes in tablet form. You pop open two tablets, drop them in a glass and mix with two tablespoons of cold water. The tablets start to dissolve the instant the water hits them and it turns into a cloudy liquid.

You add the dissolved tablets to 500mLs of lukewarm milk, sweetened with a drop of vanilla extract. This is the hard part – the milk can’t be too hot or too cold or it won’t set properly. It’s got to be perfect. Another essential part of the recipe is that you can only stir in the dissolved tablets for a few seconds, then you have to stop stiring and pour the liquid straight into a dessert bowl. You have to stop stirring because it doesn’t take long for it to start to set and you don’t want it to curdle.

So I poured it into a dessert bowl…

… and realised I hadn’t added sugar! The particular recipe I was using was to make Junket custard and a tablespoon of sugar was required to be added to the milk while it was heating. Damn! I glanced in the bowl and decided it wouldn’t hurt to just add the sugar to the dessert now. I’d quickly stir it. What could go wrong?

Uh… this?

Dammit! The instant I stuck a spoon in it, it completely curdled into a chunky, watery mess. Apparently the packet wasn’t lying when it said you only have a very limited time to stir and transfer it to a bowl once you’ve added the dissolved tablets – it was literally seconds! This was obviously ruined, so I tipped it out and, determined, started again.

This time around, I added the sugar to the milk and, once it had dissolved, I added the tablet water. I transferred the liquid to the freshly washed bowl and, well, I stared at it for a while, intrigued. After a few seconds I gently wiggled the bowl and observed how the surface of the Junket had already set into a jelly-like state.

I left the Junket out for 10 minutes to set, then transferred it to the fridge, where it remained all day until I was ready to serve it for dessert. Uh, which didn’t go so well. I guess it hadn’t totally set because when I put the spoon in it, it was a lot more liquidy and less stable than I remembered from childhood. I served it anyway and … it was as expected. It tasted like liquidy milk with a texture like tofu.

Oh well. Maybe I’ll get the tablets out in a month or so and try again, but until then I guess I will classify this as a Junket FAIL. Has anyone tried Junket before? Had any success?