Custard Tarts, Dan Tat, Pasteis De Nata

I was on the phone at work and one of my work colleagues walked in with a yellow sticky note and waved it in front of me; ‘Yum cha’.  You had me at yum!

Three of us headed down to Shark Fin Inn at 50 Little Bourke St (Shark Fin have another restaurant, Shark Fin House at 131 Little Bourke St).  All the usual yum cha suspects were there, but one little treat I’ve never seen before was a ball of minced prawns wrapped with some bacon or bacon type product and fried.  Now that was a taste sensation. 

On to more important matters…dessert.  Whenever I have yum cha I always make sure there is room left for some mango pudding.... 

...........and egg tart.  Warm tart, flaky, flaky pastry.  Delicious!

Asian custard Tart (dan tat)

I was convinced the egg tarts at yum cha were my favourite.  Later in the day I remembered the custard tart shockers that were in the caf at school or cake shops and sandwich shops around town.  If they had enough nutmeg sprinkled on top then they were tolerable.  I found one at a sandwich/cake/fried food joint in the city the next day.  But for a complete picture I needed a Portuguese tart to complete my comparison.  I headed off to Casa Iberica in my break and bought one.  $2 each or 3 for $5.  At this stage I was still sure that the Asian egg tart would be the winner. 

I got back to my desk and took a bite of the generic custard tart, as expected it was underwhelming.  

Custard tart

I took a bite from the Portuguese tart.  My goodness! Chewy flakey pastry with a rich sweet custard filling.  

Portuguese custard tart (pasteis de nata)

Now I was torn.  Okay, so now I love two different custard tarts.  Actually there are two sorts of Chinese egg tarts.  Maxims sell them with a shortcrust pastry, the filling is good.  But I’ve discovered that the egg tarts with the flaky pastry are my first choice.

Over at Baking for Britain there is some interesting information on the history of the custard tart.


Wikipedia has info on the Portuguese custard tart and the Asian custard tart.


If you want to make Portuguese tarts, there is this recipe from The Age or Bill Granger's recipe.


You might want to try making the Chinese egg tarts, there is a recipe here or here.


Or maybe making an old school custard tart but tastier than the commercial varieties.  Lynne Mullins has a recipe here or Brian Turner here.  One of my favourite quirky TV chefs is Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and he has a recipe in The Guardian. 

White wine poached pears

I bought two quinces the other day, another on my 'to cook' list.  I hunted through my recipes books, magazines and cuttings and found a really great looking recipe.  It called for three quinces, but I figured I would work with the two I had.


I got all my ingredients together then I began to cut up the quinces.  The first one had a bug that had eaten away some of the quince.  That left me with one quince.  I drove down to one of the nearest decent fruit shops that I thought might have quinces... but they didn't.  So I bought some pears and winged it.  I'd already filled the pot with the poaching liquid before I'd cut the quinces so I really did need a plan B.


White wine poached pears
(adapted from Quince Crostata recipe from 'Seasonal Kitchen - Vogue Entertaining')

500ml white wine (I used Zilzie Pinot Grigio)
250mls water
500g caster sugar
6 beurre bosc pears, peeled and left whole
5 cloves
2 teaspoons black peppercorns
2 teaspoons white peppercorns
2 bay leaves
2 cinnamon quills
2 star anise

Place all ingredients except pears into a large pot.  Bring ingredients to the boil then place pears in the pot.  Simmer for about 20 minutes or until pears are tender.  Remove pears and continue simmering liquid to reduce to a syrup. 

I served the pear with ice cream and syrup.  Plenty of pears left over, so will use yoghurt next time.

 

Wife cake

I found wife cakes (lou phor pen) at Maxims' Cakes in Little Bourke Street, just near the corner of Russell Street. I hadn't heard of them before. They are delicious. Flaky pastry encases a filling of a wintermelon paste that is not too sweet.

Wife Cake $2.30

I was telling a friend about the wife cakes and he told me they are made with candied wintermelon. He suggested not trying to make candied wintermelon. I found this pack at Great Eastern Food Centre.

There are a few recipes around, here's one at Little Corner of Mine. There is also a recipe over at Cha Xiu Bao, but she uses Chinese measurements such as tael and catty. Over at Sunflower Food Galore there is a great post that explains the terms and converts the weights into grams. I had never heard of tael and catty and found the post very interesting.

There is a recipe on this forum but also a series of photos that show the cakes being made which seems quite good.

There is some info at Wikipedia about them too.

I'd like to try and make them one day, but for now it seems just as easy to pop down to Maxims'.

Maxims' Cakes

173 Little Bourke Street

Melbourne

Ph 9662 1980

Great Eastern Food Centre

185 Russell Street

Melbourne

Ph 9663 3716

Melbourne Showgrounds Farmers' Market

It was freezing this morning and I had an internal battle, sit on the couch in front of the heater or go and check out the Melbourne Showgrounds Farmers' Market. The latter won out. I've meaning to go for ages.

The market is on every Sunday between 9am and 1pm. It will be closed while the Royal Melbourne Show is on for a couple of weeks in September.

Most of the stalls are under cover in a large shed at the showgrounds. About six hardy souls had their stalls outside.

When you walk into the shed, on the left, is some coffee being made. On the right is a stall that cooks a burger using produce from the market and from what I could gather, proceeds go back to the market. I am guessing that maybe they have different breakfast options each week, will have to find out.

The burger contains a fried egg and a meat patty and is topped with red cabbage coleslaw with a light lemony dressing, beetroot salad, some celeriac remoulade and some delicious watercress. I had some breakfast prior to the market so had a plate of the salads and some watercress. It was lovely and fresh. I've never had celeriac remoulade before so was keen to try it.

There were a few empty spots in the shed, but being winter there is not as much around. Down the back of the shed was a stall loaded with artichokes and other goodies.

I've been reading a few books on Sicilian cookery and one book, My Cousin Rosa, by Rosa Mitchell, has some recipes using artichokes, cardons and wild fennel, so it was great to be able to see this produce. I've never cooked artichokes before. I got talking to the lady at the stall, and she helped me (and others) select some good artichokes, although she said they are all pretty good at the moment. Just look for artichokes that are heavy with fairly tightly packed leaves.

At 10.30 there was a cooking demonstration to highlight produce from the market.

The first person to cook was chef Michael Zendegu. He was cooking up the breakfast burgers. He was also demonstrating a recipe for pickled mandarins (which is on page 109 of the Herald Sun today). As it is nearing the end of the mandarin season, he says it's a great way to use up the fruit. He also adds lemons sometimes. Sometimes he preserves the fruit whole, sometimes halved.

Michael also made some peking duck wrappers and had a tray with julienned carrot, daikon radish and spring onions. He used a little of the pickled mandarins in with the veg as well, and had a roast duck there to slice up and put in the pancake. He had two sauces, plain hoisin sauce, and a mix of orange reduction and hoisin sauce. I got to try one of those duck pancakes, yum.

Next, a lady called Rita cooked some artichoke schnitzels. She showed us how to trim the artichokes. She cooked the artichoke halves in boiling salted water for about 15 minutes or until tender (when you put a knife in). She drained and cooled them. The artichoke halves are then dipped in some beaten egg and then pressed into a mix of of fresh breadcrumbs, cheese and chopped parsley and garlic leaves. (At home she freezes them at this stage with layers of paper). For today she cooked them in some oil. For the frozen ones, she takes them out of the freezer about 10 or 15 minutes before and cooks them in oil. More treats to try and they were pretty delicious. I have filed that recipe away for future reference.

A lady was looking after a stall stocking whole walnuts and walnut pieces. I bought a 100g bag of walnut pieces for $5.00. They are going into some chocolate and walnut biscuits. I also bought a bag of walnuts ($12) and a nut cracker ($10). That should keep my dad happy I reckon.

The walnut season is almost over, so probably won't be able to get them for too much longer, well until about April next year anyway.

Another stall had apples and pears and some other fruit, such as lemons. I haven't heard of howell or cole pears. The man I spoke to said that the cole is an heirloom variety. It wasn't the prettiest fruit I've seen, but I bought a couple of firm cole pears to poach, and a softer one to eat today and it was a tasty juicy pear. At $3 a kilo it seemed like pretty good value to me.

Melbourne Showgrounds Farmers' Market

http://www.melbourneshowgroundsfarmersmarket.com.au/

Every Sunday 9am to 1pm (except during the Royal Melbourne Show)

Federation Hall, Melbourne Showgrounds

Gate 7, access from Leonards Cres, which is off Langs Road

Ascot Vale 3032

Falooda, faloodah, faluda

I stumbled across this drink/dessert while I was off on some food tangent, I don't even know what I was reading that led me to this dessert. This is the one I made. A pink milky drink flavoured with rose syrup. It combines the textures of soft vermicelli noodles and basil seeds with creamy ice-cream topped with chopped pistachios. I am so glad I found out about falooda. It is a delicious luxurious sweet which is on the "definitely make again" list.

Falooda is a summer drink in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Burma, Iran among others. From what I have read it seems to have origins amongst the Parsi, people of ancient Iran and India.

I found a few recipes and some information about the drink.

Danielle at Habeas Brulee writes about celebrating the Parsi New Year with faluda.

Anna at Morsels and Musings writes about it and I followed her directions for heating the milk, that is, gently till bubbles appear around the edge. I had already burnt one lot of milk before I found her helpful directions! (Hint: to deal with burnt saucepans, boil water with salt for some time. Cool, then scrape off burnt food...thanks to Martha Gardener's book on home hints )

I ended up using Nandini's recipe.

I found the main ingredients at one of the Indian shops in Footscray.

I used skim milk because that is what was in the fridge and it tasted just fine.

There were some larger bottles of rose syrup, also known as rooh afza, but I found this small 250ml bottle.

The vermicelli noodles are made from semolina. I've eaten rice vermicelli noodles in Vietnamese food. I guess you could use rice vermicelli noodles, especially if you wanted to make a gluten free dessert. Nandini says to cut up the vermicelli, but I only saw packs of vermicelli cut into small pieces already.

I saw basil seeds, (takmaria or sabja) in an Indian shop, but ended up going to one of the Asian stores as they also use basil seeds and the quality seemed a little better.

I bought a pack of instant falooda mix, so not even sure what that will be like. That's what happens when you are a grocery junkie. There were other pack flavours including strawberry and saffron.


Morning tea at work. I loaded up on containers. One contained the milk, basil seed and rose syrup. Another held the cooked vermicelli and the final one had some chopped pistachios. I stopped at a convenience store on the way to work and bought some small tubs of ice-cream. I assembled the drinks at work. The girls were as smitten as I. The boys were a bit dubious, one comment from the boss, 'it smells like something a girl would dab behind her ear'.


Can't wait to make this again. I will be keen to try some alternate flavours such as mango, saffron, pistachio or cardamom.

Piggy Mooncake

I was back at Little Saigon Market at the weekend, perving on mooncakes. To my surprise I found a new animal in the same place I got my tiger mooncake. I found a piggy mooncake!

We are currently in the Year of the Tiger in the Chinese Zodiac. Next year will be the Year of the Rabbit. Year of the Boar/Pig is a good few years off. So the initial theory about the tiger mooncake being available as it was the current year of the Chinese zodiac, has been disproved.

The piggy mooncake however is pretty cute.

It has a lotus bean paste filling and I was able to make it last three days, quite restrained on my part I thought.

Hopefully there are no new animal mooncakes, because I'll just have to eat it, as part of research of course.

Tiger mooncake

Much to the chagrin of The Bloke, I am a marketers dream. I see some quirky thing and I think, 'ooh, I must try that'. That is how this little cutie arrived on the kitchen bench this week.

I had seen it in a grocery/fruit and veg shop at Little Saigon Market. I'd seen it over several visits and eventually I broke and had to buy one. Well, I actually bought two, one for me and one for a friend at work.






The filling is not as rich as a lotus bean mooncake and it also contains almonds and I think walnuts. The pastry was a little thicker than a traditional mooncake.

I sliced off little pieces and ate it with a cup of tea. I did manage to make it last two days, the legs went on day one and I saved the tiger head and face for the second day.

I had a quick look in the shop tonight and there are still only tiger shapes. As someone at work pointed out, it is the year of the tiger. So hopefully that means that next year there will some rabbit shaped mooncakes.

Rhubarb

When I was young, about 10, we moved to a house about 30 minutes away from my grandparents. My grandfather had a huge block at the back of the house and grew all sorts of fruit and veg. We used to help pick fresh strawberries from the garden, one for me one for the bucket, and so on. He also grew rhubarb. My parents would cook up stewed rhubarb, probably with apple too I guess. I have memories of soft mush which left a dry unappealing taste. I have managed to avoid rhubarb for a very long time.

I see it around each year and toy with the idea of cooking with it, but usually back off at the last minute. I saw it in the supermarket at the weekend, seized the moment and bought a bunch. I put it in the fridge and have been trying to find a good recipe to use. So far David Lebovitz has an appealing recipe that involves red wine! There are a couple of recipes that involve roasting which seems good as it avoids the mush element of poaching it.

I settled on an adaption of a roasted rhubarb recipe from the BBC Good Food website.

1 bunch rhubarb (approx 350g after leaves cut off)
30 g caster sugar
30 g brown sugar

Preheat oven, 200 C or 190 C fan-forced. Cut rhubarb into finger length pieces. Wash rhubarb and dry off as much water as possible. Put rhubarb in a shallow dish, I used baking paper to line the dish. Sprinkle sugar mix over the rhubarb. Cover with foil. Cook for 20 minutes, or until sugar is dissolved. Remove foil and cook for another 5 or 10 minutes until rhubarb is tender but not mushy and sugar is syrupy.

I ate my rhubarb warm with plain yoghurt and also ate it cold the next day. It still has an unusual aftertaste, but is much improved by roasting rather than poaching, in my opinion anyway. I will press on with the rhubarb experiment and try some more variations. I am very keen to try the red-wine version!