Monday, February 11, 2013

317. Tarte au Citron


Organization, method, and order are supreme.
Applying organization to even the most mundane of things, and method to the most trivial of tasks, and order to seemingly unimportant matters, makes life so much more pleasant to live.
I suppose this is something the French take to heart (mostly).
I happened to be grocery shopping some years ago while visiting in France, and like any mundane task of a grocery shopper, I bought a bag of lemons. This bag of lemon (and all the others as well), had a tag with printed suggested recipes to do with its contents. I got the tarte au citron (lemon tart) recipe. So I clipped it and saved it, not really believing in its authenticity or accuracy because it's so simple... until I tried it.
Can I say I prefer tarte au citron to lemon meringue pie? I do.

It looks so plain, yet its flavors are explosive once they meet the taste buds.
I used a sweetened version of Julia Child's crust found in the roquefort cheese quiche, a must-have in any cook's repertoire. If you have access to ready-made pie dough, go ahead and use it.
The recipe calls for using both juice and zest of the lemon, which is a matter of taste as I find it sufficient to use only the juice.


Ingredients:

For the crust:
1 cup flour
100g butter
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp powdered sugar
up to 1/4 cup iced water

For the filling:
4 eggs
1 egg yolk
1/2 cup sugar
1 Tbsp flour
3 lemons, juice



Method:

Preheat oven to 400°F.
Blend all the pastry ingredients in a food processor except for the water.
Add the water in a drizzle as the machine is on.
Be careful because maybe the pastry will be perfect with just under a quarter cup water.
Roll out the pastry and line a tart tin.
Poke with fork, weigh down with dried beans, and bake for 10 minutes.
Remove beans and set aside.

Make the filling by whisking the eggs and egg yolk with the sugar and tablespoon of flour.
Whisk in the lemon juice.
Pour this mixture into the prebaked shell and return to bake for another 10 minutes.

Serve warm or cold.


 صحة و عافية

2 comments:

Kayte Miro said...

I've very tempted to make this-but past experiences with lemon tarts have left me very doubtful of making them again. Mainly due to a metallic after taste that lingers on the tongue, could you honestly say that this lemon tart doesnt have that metallic taste?

Maryam said...

Hi Kayte, thanks for coming back!
It definitely does not have a metalic aftertaste, because you are not cooking the lemon in a metal pot like the lmon curd in the lemon meringue pie. Also, I would suggest while making lemon curd (for lemon meringue pie) to use an enamel-coated pot. That way the acid from the lemon does not react the way it does with a metal pot, thereby avoiding the metalic taste you were referring to.
Always a pleasure to read your comments, come back soon!