Nadine Abensur, the director of Art Piece Gallery in Mullumbimby, is also a keen cook, and the author of Crank’s Bible – the last word in vegetarian cookery books. She joins us this month as our new food writer, and her first recipe is a deliciously simple passionfruit curd.
The passion fruit vine that garlands my fence is heavy with great big, ovoid fruit, slowly ripening in the sun and rain. The orange tree is bowed down with fruit, branches practically sweeping the ground (and no, I’m not a very good gardener). There are lemons at the market and limes are bright and plump with juice.
So I decide to make curd. Which should be plain sailing. Except that it isn’t. The first batch, made to the letter, according to the doyenne of Australian cookery writer’s instruction, is disappointingly opaque, grainy, dense. It omits the additional egg yolks that add silken gloss and translucency – vital measures of a good curd – to the whisk of egg, sugar, butter, juice.
All my instincts tell me the recipe is flawed but in characteristically dogged fashion, I battle on. It’s no use. In the end it is salvaged by a friend’s effort, still all of a warm wobble, brought to the dinner at which she is a guest. Sandwiched between disks of meringue, and a swathe of whipped cream, there is a gasp of joyful anticipation when I set the whole teetering construction on the table (after what I must say has already been a stupendously extravagant meal). Everyone, but everyone, even the “I don’t eat sugar” brigade, delve into it, spoonful after spoonful. The company is cheerful, warm-hearted, full of goodwill, and dessert slides down accompanied by laughter, that most powerful of digestifs.
It doesn’t end here this little tale.
I freeze the excess to prevent further excess. Ha! The next morning, out it comes – semifreddo – part ice, part not. It makes the most glorious of breakfasts.
Three days later, I pick enough passionfruit – turned at last to lemon yellow, the flesh neon bright – and make a big fat jar of it, to keep, to share, to give away. This time the recipe is mine and it works!
Passionfruit Curd
120g unsalted, organic butter, cut into cubes,
245g caster sugar
1 cup passion fruit juice (8 – 10 passion fruit), strained, seeds reserved
3 large eggs
3 egg yolks
Beat together the eggs and yolks. Because I am a pedant about such things, I strain the egg through a sieve and discard the stringy bits. Place the butter, caster sugar and strained juice in a medium sized saucepan. Put the seeds in a sieve and stir them with a spoon to loosen the fibrous flesh. Return the seeds to the pan. Set onto a gentle flame and stir gently (gently does it) till the caster sugar has dissolved and the butter melted. Do not on any account, allow to boil, or your eggs will curdle when you add them in. Remove from the heat and stir in the beaten eggs and yolks, until well incorporated.
Then on a very low heat, stir continuously with a flat edged wooden spoon or a large metal one, moving the amalgamating curd away from the sides and bottom of the pan, so there is no risk at all of it catching. I hover my pan 10cm above the flame for almost the entire nine minutes it takes for the curd to coalesce. I like to take every precaution.
It fills a small, round-bottomed, sterilised preserving jar to the brim with a little left over. Breakfast anyone?
There’s more too: alternate teaspoons of curd and yoghurt into tea glasses and serve, a little zest atop.
Make a simple trifle with limoncello soaked finger biscuits, curd of any zesty persuasion, a whip of cream.
Then there are the usual curd filled sponge cakes, buttery tarts and curd-topped brioche.
You can find Nadine at Art Piece Gallery in Mullumbimby on artpiecegallery
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