Pasteis de Nata

I'm at home aimlessly wandering around the house feeling sorry for myself. I had some nasty 24 hour bug that I'm recovering from and because I'm a bit of a baby my mum came to pick me up. Being too drowsy to actually go anywhere but too awake to do nothing, I decided to do a bit of baking for my family even though (boo hoo) I've gone completely off my food, which is unheard of.

Remembering being in Camden and stuffing my face with the little Portugese custard tarts (Pasteis de Nata) from Lisboa, I decided to find out how to make them. I had a look on the internet and came across a cool recipe on Algarve Buzz, which I have tweaked, the recipe is in cups which is a bit annoying but oh well. Once I had taken these out of the oven, my little brother ate one and then immediately asked for another, which is a good sign.

1 packet ready made puff pastry

1 ¾ cups milk
¼ cup double cream
4 egg yolks
3 tbsp caster sugar
Pinch salt
2 tbsp cornflour
2 strips lemon peel
½ tsp vanilla extract

2 tbsp muscovado sugar
Half a tsp ground cinnamon plus extra for dusting

Preheat oven to 200 degrees C, makes 12

For the pastry cream, whisk togeter the yolks and caster sugar until pale and fluffy, add the salt and cornflour and mix. Put the milk, cream, lemon peel and vanilla extract into a medium-sized saucepan and bring to the boil (stir every now and then to make sure the milk doesn't burn). Once boiling, take off the heat and add half of the milk mixture to the egg mixture and whisk. Pour this back into the pan with the rest of the milk mixture and return to the heat. Keep whisking  until it thickens and boils for 30 seconds. Pass through a sieve to remove the lemon peel and put into a bowl to cool down with clingfilm directly on the surface (so it doesn't form a skin).

Roll out the puff pastry to a rectangle about 4mm thick. In a small bowl, combine the cinnamon with the muscavado sugar and spread this over the pastry. Roll into a sausage and cut into 2cm slices.

Roll each slice into a little disk and put the disks into a buttered 12 hole tray. Rest these in the fridge until the pastry cream is cool, this will stop the pastry shrinking during cooking.

Once the pastry cream is cool, take the pastry cases out of the fridge and fill them. Put them in the oven for about 25 minutes. When I was cooking mine I put them in for 15 minutes and kept taking them out and putting them back in so I reckon it should be about 25 but keep checking. Once they are golden and bubbly, transfer to a cooling wire and dust with cinnamon, perfect with a cup of coffee in the afternoon.

Bargain

I was pottering about in my host family's house before my 2 o'clock start at college when I realised that i was actually starving. My poor tummy was rumbling but I knew that the only food on offer would be last night's leftover chilli con carne, which wasn't a perticularly appealing prospect. I decided to go and do something about it, and remembering my Turkish landlady's recomendation of a Turkish cafe down the end of our street, I set out to find some grub.
I started off walking and it was a few minutes before I remembered how long this road was, it streched out before me, mocking me, and all the time I was walking I was very aware that I was going to have to walk back again.
Eventually, I arrived at the top of Charminster high street and following my directions, looked opposite the Tesco express for Ali Baba. I cast my judgemental eye over the shabby kebab shop exterior, adorned with colourful pictures of cooked meat on skewers and rotating doner kebab. Wrinkling my nose, I decided to give it a go anyway. When i walked in, I spotted a rowdy table of middle aged Turkish men tucking into big plates of grilled meat, rice and salad. A few of them cast a weary eye over me and returned to their meal. A little man behind the glass counter smiled and greeted me as I picked up a menu and tried to decide what to eat. My landlady had recomended the lahmacun (a kind of Turkish pizza) so I asked for that and took a seat at one of the long wooden tables.
The little man bought me over a small bulb-shaped glass of Turkish tea while I waited. I watched a broad man strech dough into a circle and spread over lamb mince before scooping it up with a round palate and throwing it into the fire oven. A few minutes later it was ready, golden and crisp. The man behind the counter put it on to a sheet of white paper and topped it with shredded lettuce, pickled red cabbage, juicy tomatoes and red onions before rolling it up and tieing the ends. I asked for a pot of their thick yoghurt and cucumber dip, and because i was feeling really piggy, two little pieces of honey-drenched home-made baklava. Imagine my surprise when I got my purse out to pay and the man said "three pounds fifty please". I felt rather guilty handing such a small amount of money over for so much food.

London withdrawl symptoms

Two weeks ago I reluctantly and obligingly turned up at Bournemouth to carry on with college for the next three months. As I walk around the streets of uniform Indian takeaways and Italian restaurants, I can’t help pining for the pork and prawn buns in Chinatown, yearning for a juicy steak from Gaucho, and longing for the Brazilian cheese bread in Canela. I go off into a dream like trance starring at nothing in particular and craving a prawn phad thai from Dim T.
Just as I was about to hit a sort of food rock bottom, I found a place that is (dare I say it?) just as good as all my London regulars.
Boscanova- located at the entrance to the scummy and run down capsule of vileness that is Boscomb high street, Boscanova is miraculously delightful. Serving rich coffee, fresh smoothies, stacks of Canadian pancakes, Middle Eastern food and Mexican food (sounds like a bizarre mix but it honestly isn’t) in a laid back bohemian beach shack style cafe.
On my last visit I arrived with my friend from college and we ordered hot honey, lemon and ginger which warmed us up a treat. I then decided to go for the confusingly named “Shh Shh Shish with Zatar” simply because I didn’t quite understand any of the components described on the dish description (brochette, zatar and succotash anyone?) and I was intrigued.
When it turned up at my table it was a big platter of flavoursome grilled sweet potato and haloumi skewers, very fresh tomato and red onion salsa, tasty tabouleh salad, warm flatbread and stuffed olives. It was all so yummy that I devoured it in a matter of minutes. After sitting back for a couple of minutes and assessing if I could fit any more in my tummy, I concluded that I must (for the sake of research you understand).
My friend and I decided that we would get a cake as per the enticing recommendation of a little sign on their wall proudly boasting “we have lovely cakes”. Once this was resolved, I was so eager to get up and choose my cake that I gracefully knocked over my chair in the process. We tried to refrain from pressing our greedy little faces up against the glass as we stared at the baked goods.
I chose a slice of banana loaf and my friend had the carrot and walnut cake. The banana cake had been toasted in a Panini toaster and served with a little pot of cinnamon-sprinkled butter which I wasted no time in thickly spreading onto the hot cake. I can honestly say that it was the nicest banana loaf I have had (banana loaf is my favourite cake and I have eaten more of it than any normal person should). It was moist, chewy and just plain yummy. I also managed to persuade my friend to part with a piece of her carrot cake which was very Moorish and had a generous covering of cream cheese icing. We left with full and bellies and lived happily ever after.  

Macaroons

I sit here in this hostel canteen full of noisy Spanish students, staring desperately at my laptop and trying to think of what to write. But as I realise that my hostile glares don’t seem to silence them, I move to the quiet but stuffy underground study room. The gentle hum of the computers relaxes me and I recall to my mind a subject of much worry and debate in the kitchen I work in- macaroons.

On my first day working in the pastry section, a commis and I were discussing our list of things to be done for that day, macaroons were on the list. I asked her if she had the recipe and she nervously replied that she did, but only our head chef is allowed to make them. We would have to go without them for the day. Confused as to why this was, I wondered for some time how complex the recipe must be that only one person out of the five of us was qualified to make them.

I came to realise that they are indeed volatile little things. These little pastel buttons of almond meringue are any pastry chef’s worst nightmare. Once every week, I watched our chef bobbing about the kitchen, sieving, folding and piping. That week his batches of rose macaroons were perfect, shiny and smooth. The next week, his pistachio ones were cracked and dull. “Putain” he exclaimed as he stomped about pulling items out of the fridges at random and slamming doors. He would do this for an hour or so before the poor man could muster up the courage to brave another batch.

One day, to everyone’s amazement, he allowed a commis to try the recipe. I watched the steely concentration on her face

as she weighed the precise measurements; the end result was great; to chef’s delight. The next week she tried again, and they collapsed into shrivelled hard pellets.

The next week it was my turn. My hands shook as I tried to pipe each one to exactly the same size. I stared at the oven with dread the entire time they were cooking, but miraculously, they turned out really well. The next week the panic set in as I tried to re-create last week’s success knowing that it was unlikely. But again, they were fine. Ever since then I have had a bizarrely good track record with these, if you have the courage to have a go at making them, here is the recipe:

Coffee Macaroons

405g almond powder

735g icing sugar

375g egg whites

100g caster sugar

50g trablit (coffee extract)

Put the almond powder and icing sugar into a blender and blend for a minute or so to break up any lumps. Sieve and set to one side.

Whisk the egg whites until fluffy and stiff, add the sugar in 4 parts, whisking well in between each addition. The egg whites should now be very white and firm. Now add the trablit and whisk to incorporate.

Transfer the mixture to a large mixing bowl and add a third of the almond. Fold this in gently until it is all incorporated then proceed to do the same with the other two thirds. Now comes the stage where the macaroons can go very wrong. You need to knock some of the air out of the mixture so the macaroons aren’t too fat, but if you do this too much then the mixture will turn to liquid and you will have flat macaroons. Beat the mixture until it is shiny and thick.

Put the mixture into a piping bag with a round nozzle and pipe circles onto trays lined with silicone pads. You now need to leave them out for 30 minutes before cooking; this helps to form a smooth skin.

Cook them at 155 degrees for 14 minutes, I wish you success!