The best Yorkshire curd tart

This is the first time I've ever posted a recipe directly on this blog, because it is the first time I've ever cooked something that made me want to go 'Go on! Try it!' knowing most people won't already have done.

I have been looking for a good recipe for Yorkshire curd tart for some time. They're a regional food that is still very much in evidence. Betty's do a sublime one. The cheesy, spicy flavour of these tarts is quite distinct. If made with a good crisp pastry to contrast with the light, rubbly texture of the filling, they can be fantastic.

The first problem was what sort of curd cheese to use. Traditionally they were made from 'beastling' milk - cows' colostrum - as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall shows us on River Cottage Road Trip. But you can't get colostrum easily these days, except powdered, in tins, for bodybuilders.

Traditionally, these tarts also contain rosewater, but I had never seen that in a recipe, and these days they always have dried fruit in.

It all came together when I found this recipe, which I have adapted below. It includes the rosewater (Click on the link to find out how you can make your own!) You make the curds yourself by curdling hot milk with lemon. I left out the raisins and made the pastry a touch richer.

Making the curd is easier than you can possibly imagine. It is also magic - seeing the curds slowly appear from a pan of milk! Children would like this bit.

When baking, make sure you open the oven a crack to breathe in the scent of warm rosewater as the tart cooks. It is really the rosewater that is the secret of this tart. It blends with the spices to evoke summer gardens, pot pourri, Tudor farmhouses with roses round the door and dark oak furniture.... Give it a go!

THE BEST YORKSHIRE CURD TART

INGREDIENTS

For the pastry:

4oz plain flour

1 oz icing sugar

2 oz butter

2 egg yolks

For the filling:

3 pints whole milk

juice 1 lemon

4 oz butter

2 tablespoons rosewater

1 whole egg

2 egg whites

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg

handful of currants (optional)

The day before you want to eat it, make the curd. To do this you simply heat the milk almost to boiling point, then take off the heat, add the lemon juice and stir until it curdles. It will look like baby sick! Allow to cool.

Put a sieve over a large jug or pan and line it with muslin. Pour in your curdled milk and allow it to strain overnight.

Here I will give you a very important tip. Make sure the edges of the muslin are over the pan (or, if you are using a jug, stand the whole thing inside a bowl) because the whey will drip from the corners and could end up in a puddle on your kitchen worktop!

These are the curds draining:

And after they have drained overnight:

The next day, make the pastry by sifting together the flour and icing sugar, then rubbing in the butter by hand or in a food processor. When the mixture resembles breadcrumbs add the egg yolks to bring it together into a ball. Wrap in cling film and allow to rest in the fridge for an hour.

Before making the filling, turn on the oven to 190 c and put in a baking sheet to preheat.

To make the filling, simply beat together the softened butter and rosewater, then stir in the curds. Finally, beat in the eggs, the cinnamon and the dried fruit if you are using it.

Line a greased 8" tart tin with your pastry. Fill with the filling and sprinkle with nutmeg. Bake on the preheated baking sheet for 25-30 minutes, until the pastry is crisp and shrinking away from the sides of the tin and the top is golden brown.

Tongue!

I was standing in my favourite deli the other day choosing things for a soup-and-bread-and-things lunch.

At the back of the hams was a dark-reddish meat. 'Ox tongue' said the label.

Tongue is one of those things I would have thought I must have eaten before. This is because it is familiar to us from children's literature - all those interminable massive farmhouse teas served to the Famous Five after an adventure, with fresh bread and butter and a cold tongue and lashings of something or other to drink. But I couldn't have said what it tasted like. It normally counts as offal, of course, although it's really just a big muscle. My husband insisted it was chewy, and you'd be able to feel the taste buds as you ate it.

Anyway, I bought a few slices, and guess what? The children loved it. 'Muh! Muh!' said the baby, stuffing it in and holding out his chubby fist for more. My two year old made a grab for the bit on my plate.

For any other tongue virgins out there (fnarr) it just tasted like a rather beefy sort of ham. No taste buds or anything weird, and not at all tough.

Meltons Too Damn Slow

Took the family to Meltons Too in York for Sunday lunch the other week.
Meltons Too is one of York's entries in the latest Good Food Guide. It regularly gets recommended in the Knowledge section of The Times, in the bit where they lift restaurant reviews from the Square Meal website. Recently they were plugging it as the top 'child friendly' restuarant in the north of England.

The food was nice enough. I had a creamy Whitby crab chowder gratin (which I assume was a nifty way of recycling the previous night's soup) and my husband had an exiguous portion of roasted vegetables which made him complain for hours about the quantities and how he could have made the same thing at home for a tenth of the price etc etc.

Problem was, it took 40 minutes to arrive, and that's after we waited 10 minutes to have our orders taken. So having arrived at one o'clock, into a not particularly busy restaurant, we didn't get anything to eat until ten to two. My two year old grew sad and pale. My baby shrieked. We gave them biscuits, and milk, thus ensuring they wouldn't be able to eat their dinner when it did arrive, which was a pity, because babies love roasted vegetables and creamy crab.

I like it when restaurants try to be family friendly. I can change a nappy on a few square inches of toilet floor, but a changing table in the loos still makes the job quicker and easier. It's good to have the option of child-size portions, and it's great when a restaurant is basically friendly to children and doesn't mind the odd toddler toddling around the room. But all these things are as nothing if you don't have speed. I hate to say it, but this is where MacDonalds scores ten out of ten and Meltons Too, two.