Fiona Strickland and Rose Carrarini’s curried cauliflower tarts
You can vary the vegetables used in the filling for these tarts and replace the potatoes with roast pumpkin or even cooked okra (ladies’ fingers) or peas.
Makes 12 x 8-10cm individual tarts
For the pastry dough
plain flour 500g
salt 1 tsp
unsalted butter 250g
egg yolk 1
water 125-250ml
butter for greasing
plain flour for dusting
For the filling
curry powder 1 tbsp
single cream 1.5 litres
dijon mustard 2 tbsp
eggs 8
egg yolks 2
grated nutmeg a pinch
salt ½ tsp
ground black pepper
cheddar 250g, grated
cauliflower 2-3 heads, broken into small florets, blanched and drained
potatoes 500g, diced, boiled and drained
fresh coriander 1 bunch, coarsely chopped
To make the pastry dough, sift the flour and salt into a bowl, add the butter and rub in with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fresh breadcrumbs. Make a well in the middle and add the egg yolk and 125ml water. Mix vigorously with a fork until almost all the flour is incorporated, then add a little more water and bring the dough together with your fingers, using as little water as possible. The dough should just come together naturally without force, and be soft but firm and not sticky. Shape into a ball, wrap in clingfilm and chill in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.
Grease 12 x 8-10cm individual tart tins with butter. Roll out the dough to about 5mm thick on a lightly floured surface and cut 12 rounds to fit the prepared tart tins. Ease them into the tins and trim off any excess dough. Rest in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 180C/gas mark 4. Line the pastry cases with foil or baking paper and fill with dried beans, baking beans or rice.
Bake blind for 30-35 minutes, till the base is light, golden and dry. Remove from the oven, take out the weights and lining and let cool.
Meanwhile, in a bowl, stir the curry powder into the cream, then beat in the mustard, eggs, egg yolks, nutmeg, and salt and pepper to taste.
Preheat the oven to 180C/gas mark 4.
Divide the cheese among the pastry cases, then add the cauliflower, potatoes and most of the coriander. Cover with the egg mixture and top with the remaining coriander.
Bake for about 25 minutes, until firm and golden. Remove from the oven and serve immediately or let cool.
From How To Boil An Egg by Fiona Strickland and Rose Carrarini (Phaidon Press, £22.95)
Nathan Outlaw’s English salad
I call this “English salad” because as a kid this is the only salad I knew. It was always on the table at home and all the ingredients were either grown in the allotment or greenhouse, or bought from the local greengrocer. The dressing was salad cream – never vinaigrette or mayonnaise. This is my version.
Serves 4
raw beetroot 4
malt vinegar 100ml
eggs 4 large, at room temperature
cucumber 1
full-flavoured salad tomatoes 6
spring onions 1 bunch, trimmed and sliced
radishes 1 bunch (or 2 bunches if they are small), halved
button mushrooms 6, finely sliced
mustard and cress 1 punnet, freshly cut
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
For the salad cream
egg yolks 2
English mustard 2 tsp
caster sugar 2 tsp
lemon juice 2 tbsp
light olive oil 100ml
double cream 150ml
To make the salad cream, put the egg yolks, mustard, sugar and lemon juice into a bowl and whisk for 1 minute. Gradually add the olive oil, drop by drop to begin with and then in a steady stream until it is all incorporated. Slowly whisk in the cream and season with salt to taste. Cover and refrigerate until required.
To cook the beetroot, put them into a pan with the malt vinegar, cover with water and bring to the boil. Simmer for 25-30 minutes until tender.
In the meantime, bring a pan of water to the boil. Gently lower in the eggs and cook for 6 minutes. Remove the eggs from the pan and refresh in ice-cold water. Leave until cold, then peel away the shells.
Once the beetroot are cooked, remove them from the pan and leave until cool enough to handle, then peel away the skin.
Peel and slice the cucumber and place in a large bowl. Cut out the stalk end from the tomatoes and slice each one into 8 wedges. Add to the bowl along with the spring onions, radishes and mushrooms. Season with salt and pepper and toss gently to mix.
Scatter the salad veg over a large serving platter. Cut the boiled eggs in half lengthways and arrange across the salad. Slice the beetroot and lay the slices on the salad. Add drizzles of salad cream and scatter over the mustard and cress. Serve the rest of the dressing separately for everyone to help themselves.
From Nathan Outlaw’s Home Kitchen by Nathan Outlaw (Quadrille, £20)
Fuchsia Dunlop’s purple seaweed and egg ‘flower’ soup
While living in Changsha I was lucky enough to meet one of the really great chefs of the older generation, Shi Yinxiang, then in his late 80s and still overseeing a restaurant bearing his name in the centre of town. Master Shi was born in 1917, the third generation of chefs in his family. He told me he had begun cooking at home at the age of 10, and five years later had started his apprenticeship under a famous chef who had worked in the household of a government official before opening his own restaurant in Changsha. There he learned the subtle arts of Hunanese haute cuisine, and by the 1950s he was working for the government, and in charge of the catering for the visits of national leaders, including Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Liu Shaoqi and Jiang Zemin. Shi became known for his brilliant and innovative cooking, and in the 1980s he published a comprehensive Hunanese cookery book that brought together his more than 50 years’ experience. He is an enchanting man, with a kindly manner and a face that creases up frequently into a beatific smile. He is still riding on a crest of glory as the man who managed to delight Chairman Mao with his cooking, and the first Hunanese chef to be awarded “special first-grade” status.
The following recipe is a humble one, but it’s a soup that I ate at Master Shi’s restaurant as he told me about his life. The dried seaweed, which is sold in thin discs about 20cm in diameter, and looks black and frizzy before soaking, can be found in good Chinese supermarkets.
Serves 2 as Western style starter, 4 as part of Chinese meal
vegetarian stock 1 litre
dried purple laver seaweed 1 disc (nori in Japanese)
fresh ginger 20g, peeled and slivered
salt and white pepper
egg 1
spring onion 1, green part only, finely sliced
Heat the stock with the seaweed and ginger and simmer gently as the seaweed reconstitutes itself. Tease the tightly massed disc apart with a pair of chopsticks, so the seaweed drifts in strands in the liquid. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Beat the egg well. Turn the heat down to a minimum, drizzle in the egg into the soup in a thin spiralling stream across the surface. Then turn off the heat, cover the pan tightly and leave for a minute to allow the egg to set into little flakes or “flowers”.
Serve immediately with a sprinkling of spring onion.
From The Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook by Fuchsia Dunlop (Ebury Press, £30)
Asma Khan’s anda curry – hard-boiled eggs in gravy
Eggs are the fall-back ingredient in every Indian household. I associate egg curry with monsoons in Calcutta, when the bazaar was closed due to flooding. The local delivery man would bring eggs to our home, cycling through the flooded streets. The egg curry made at home usually included potatoes to make the dish more substantial, though I have omitted them here. You can use any type of egg for this dish, even quail eggs. In India we leave the eggs whole, but you can halve them before returning them to the pan. Just be careful not to lose their yolks in the gravy.
Serves 2
medium eggs 4
vegetable oil 6 tbsp
green cardamom pod 1
clove 1
Indian bay leaf 1
cumin seeds ½ tsp
onions 2 medium, finely chopped
garlic paste 1 tsp
fresh ginger paste 1 tbsp
ground turmeric ½ tsp
ground coriander 1 tbsp
chilli powder ½ tsp
natural (plain) yogurt 6 tbsp
salt 1 tsp
fresh herbs a handful, to garnish
If you keep your eggs in the refrigerator, take them out 30 minutes before cooking to bring them to room temperature. Fill a large pan with water and bring to a rolling boil over a high heat. Lower the heat to a simmer, then place the eggs in the water and cook for 12 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, remove the eggs from the pan and place in cold running water to prevent further cooking. When they’re cool enough to handle, shell the eggs.
In a shallow saucepan, heat the oil over a medium-high heat. Add the hard-boiled eggs and cook until they are speckled all over with brown patches. Remove the eggs from the pan and set aside.
To the remaining oil, add the cardamom, clove and bay leaf. Add the cumin seeds and cook, stirring, for a few seconds until the seeds darken.
Add the chopped onions, garlic and ginger to the pan, cook for a further 5 minutes until the onion mixture has softened and coloured to a light brown. Continue to stir while cooking to prevent the onions from burning and sticking to the base of the pan. If the onion mixture does stick to the base of the pan, sprinkle over some water.
Add the ground turmeric, coriander and chilli powder. Cook, stirring, for 10-20 seconds or until the “raw” smell of the turmeric has disappeared, taking care not to let the ground spices burn. Pour over 200ml cold water and increase the heat to high.
Once any excess water has evaporated, lower the heat. To avoid any lumps in the sauce, stir the yogurt before adding it to the pan. Stir to mix evenly and then season with salt. Lastly, add the hard boiled eggs to the pan and allow to heat through. Before serving, scatter over plenty of fresh herbs.
From Asma’s Indian Kitchen by Asma Khan (Pavilion Books, £20)
Nigel Slater’s lemon cream-cheese mousse cake
Toasted, flaked almonds add a welcome note of crispness to the base of a cheesecake and lighten the crust. My feeling is that the base should be delicate and barely there, so I avoid pressing the crumbs into the cake tin too firmly, as it tends to compact the mixture.
Serves 8
For the crust
flaked almonds 70g
plain biscuits 150g, such as Nice or Marie
butter 65g
For the mousse
eggs 4 medium
caster sugar 150g
lemons 2 large
gelatine 5 sheets (9g)
full-fat cream cheese 250g
double cream 250ml
rose petals a handful
You will need a round 20-22cm cake tin with a removable base, lined on the base with a disc of baking parchment.
In a dry, shallow pan, toast the flaked almonds until golden, then remove from the heat. Crush the biscuits to fine crumbs, either in a plastic freezer bag with a rolling pin, or using a food processor.
Melt the butter, then add the crumbs and flaked almonds, and mix thoroughly. Transfer the mixture to the lined cake tin, pressing it in a thin layer over the base. Chill for an hour.
Separate the eggs. Put the whites in a large mixing bowl. Beat the yolks and sugar together using an electric mixer with a whisk attachment until thick and pale. Grate the lemons finely, then add the zest to the yolk mix.
Juice the lemons – you will need 125ml. Soak the gelatine in a bowl of cool water. Warm the lemon juice in a small saucepan and remove from the heat. Lift the softened gelatine from the water (it should be a soft, quivery mass, only just solid enough to pick up) and drop it into the warm juice. Stir until it is dissolved.
Add the cream cheese to the yolk-and-sugar mixture, beating until completely smooth, then add the lemon juice and gelatine. Whip the cream until it’s thick enough to sit in soft waves (not quite thick enough to stand in stiff peaks), then fold gently into the mixture. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then fold them in carefully and thoroughly.
Pour the mixture into the chilled cake tin (it should come almost to the top), then cover tightly with clingfilm and chill overnight. (Make sure you don’t have anything garlicky in the fridge – mousse-type dishes will pick up the scent overnight.)
The next day, run a warm palette knife around the edge of the cake to release it from the edges, then remove it carefully from the tin. Decorate with the rose petals.
Note that the cake is wobbly and fragile, so keep it chilled until you intend to serve it, and use a cake slice to serve it.
Nigel Slater is the Observer’s food writer
OFM’s 20 best egg recipes part 3 launches tomorrow morning
