Curds Away

Let's begin this installment with a little pop quiz.

Curds

What do you think of when you read this word?

A. Parting of whey and milk solids at the cross roads of the cheese making process, never to be reunited?

B. Fresh, firm cauliflower asking to be cooked simply and devoured with a creamy cheese sauce?

C. Sunshine yellow, citrussy lemon sweetness in a jar?

All three are correct. However, today I am in a fruity mood, so I am focussing on C.

Lemon Curd

Last Sunday I made my first ever batch of the breakfast delicacy known as lemon curd. Growing up with jam, peanut butter, marmalade and the occasional jar of ginger preserve, lemon curd did not appear on the breakfast table until adulthood.

A recent gift of surplus lemons was the excuse needed to get a batch of curd on the go.

Recipes varied as did techniques, but the ingredients remained constant; lemons, sugar, butter and eggs. So this is how I did it.

Ingredients

Two good sized lemons

200g caster sugar

50g slightly salted butter (I didn't have unsalted) chopped into cubes

2 medium eggs, beaten.

Plus a good, clean jar for storage.

Method

Using a zester or grater, create zesty strands of lemon rind from both lemons. If the lemons are waxed, then please scrub under a tap and dry before this step.

Then halve and juice the lemons. Give them a good hard roll under your palm on a work top to soften the fruit. It should allow you to extract more juice, more simply.

Put those aside for now.

Create a bain Marie (double boiler) by boiling some water in a saucepan and placing a glass or ceramic bowl over it. Lift the bowl to check it is not touching the water.

Add the sugar and butter and mix until combined.

Add the lemon juice and rind and mix into the butter and sugar mixture.

Pour in half the beaten eggs, mix in then add the remainder and mix in well.

The mixture should look like a golden yellow runny liquid. Cooking times will vary depending on how high you have your heat source, but typically this will take 20 to 30 minutes until you have a thick, gloopy substance of lemon happiness.

Now the aim is to gently cook the mixture on the surface of the heated bowl. This will slowly cook and thicken the mixture, avoiding a scrambled egg mess. So stir the mixture slowly, but deliberately, scraping down sides down as you go.

Some books suggest a wooden spoon, others a whisk, me? I used my trusty wooden spatula!

It was raining outside, and bit of a dull day, so to keep me cheery I played some Kurt Ellling. You can choose what works for you.

Around 30 minutes later, I could push the spatula through the curd and momentarily I could see the bottom of the bowl, so to me this was time to pot up,

I had boiled some water in a kettle and poured this into the jar to just wipe out the last of any bugs. A quick shake dry and the curd was taken off the heat and ladled into the jar.

I let the mixture cool before sealing the jar with its lid and storing in the fridge.

Shortly after, the temptation to try was immense, so on some buttered toast with a mug of tea, the home made lemon curd was sampled.

Zesty, sunny, fresh and sweet, this was home made treat knocked spots off any shop bought curd.

It takes a bit of time, but straightforward ingredients make this a simple delight that can be enjoyed at anytime, not just breakfast.