I am quite spoiled—in the lemon department.
Shortly after moving to our house 15 some years ago, my family went on a day trip to Home Depot to look for plants for the front and back yard. My mom chose roses in all sorts of colors; my dad got the standard shrubbery; my little brother didn't care as he could barely even walk; and I, a lemon sapling. This could have very been a forecast of what's to come in my future!
In just a few years, the sapling grew from the top of my navel to taller than our house, producing an endless supply of lemons. We used them for lemonade, lemon coke, preserved lemons—nothing beats walking just a few yards for the fresh stuff.
It wasn't till recently that I ventured out the beverage arena to give lemon curd a try. Armed with a recipe from Martha Stewart's Everyday Food, I went and picked out 2 plump specimens and got to work.
In a medium saucepan, I whisked together 1 cup sugar, 1 TB lemon zest and 8 egg yolks. Next I mixed in 2/3 cup fresh lemon juice (about 1 1/2 lemons) and 1/4 tsp salt.
Once all the ingredients are well incorporated, I set the pan over medium-high heat and added in 10 TB unsalted butter, which equals to 1 1/4 sticks. I whisked constantly as lemon scent scrambled eggs wasn't my goal!
In a few minutes, it was thick enough to coat a the back of a spoon. Strained and cooled in the fridge for a few hours, I had 2 cups of the lip-puckering compound.
Lacking foresight however, I did not prepare anything to serve the curd with… fail.
After a mad scrambled, I found a box of Trader Joe's Vanilla Meringues, the hero of the day. With a generous smear of the lemon curd in between the airy cookies, I had myself a deconstructed lemon meringue pie! It works especially well as the cookies by themselves were too sweet for my taste so the lemon curd was instrumental in balancing the saccharine meringues.
Love the classy ridges on the meringues. Makes me want to ask, "oh you fancy huh?"
Hope you give it a try!
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i sadly admit that i've never tried lemon curd. *tears*
ReplyDeleteYou're young—there's hope!! Make a batch :)
ReplyDeletenow can you pipe the curds into profiteroles? or puffs? and send 'em over my house? trade you some.. lemon grass?
ReplyDeletealso, the captcha by blogspot for my comment as "ingboba". I think that means we're s'pose to have boba tonight?
ReplyDeleteLemon grass would actually be a good trade! Lemon-lemongrass curd would be awesome...
ReplyDeleteAlso, I think blogspot is trying some subliminal marketing :D
Ps. Had to look up captcha!
Mmmm! I like my lemon curd best with shortbread cookies :-) Especially imported ones from the UK with lots of butter!
ReplyDeleteI love the presentation and idea behind these deconstructed lemon pies. I'd love to have a lemon tree where I live. Lemons have so many great purposes, even outside of cooking and to top it off, I happen to love the smell. Thanks for sharing this great recipe!
ReplyDeleteCathy: Oh you fancy huh? ;) That song has been stuck in my head for the past week, heee. But yeah, the shortbread sounds good—do you usually get the Walker brand?
ReplyDeleteJara: Thanks! If you have room, definitely get one. They're easy to maintain and keeps giving :)