Is my pekin bantam male or female?

[craftyhunnypie]

Anyone got a mega easy recipe for this or mini ones as I just love Curd Tart & fancy making one or two.

 

Think you can use cottage cheese?

 

Emma.x

[Tigerlily]

Yes you can use cottage cheese I've seen Rick Stein do it on his food heroes programme. here's his recipe from the bbc food website, but it uses rennet. Not sure if you just substitute this for the cottage cheese though

 

Ingredients

1.2 litres/2 pints full cream milk

2 tbsp rennet

100g/4oz butter, softened

50g/2oz caster sugar

2 medium eggs, well beaten

pinch of salt

¼ tsp ground allspice

a little freshly grated nutmeg to taste

1 rounded tbsp fresh white breadcrumbs

100g/4oz plump, seedless raisins

For the pastry case

112g/4oz plain flour

pinch of salt

32g/1¼oz chilled butter, cut into pieces

32g/1¼oz chilled lard, cut into pieces

¾-1 tbsp cold water

 

 

 

Method

1. To make the fresh curds, put the milk into a pan and bring it just up to blood heat - 37C/98F. Pour it into a bowl, stir in the rennet and set it aside somewhere cool, but not in the fridge, until set. Then break up the mixture a bit and tip it into a large, muslin-lined sieve set over a bowl. Cover and leave somewhere cool to drain for 8 hours or overnight, but again, do not refrigerate.

2. To make the pastry, sift the flour and salt into a food processor or a mixing bowl. Add the pieces of chilled butter and lard and work together, either in the food processor or with your fingertips, until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the water with a round-bladed knife (or process finely) until it comes together into a ball, then turn out onto a lightly floured work surface and knead briefly until smooth.

3. The next day, roll out the pastry on a lightly floured surface and use to line a 4cm/1½ inches deep, 20cm/8 inch loose-bottomed flan tin. Prick the base here and there with a fork and chill for 20 minutes.

4. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6. Line the pastry case with greaseproof paper and a thin layer of baking beans and bake for 15 minutes. Remove the paper and beans and return to the oven for 5 minutes until lightly golden.

5. For the filling, tip the curds out of the muslin into the sieve and press through with a wooden spoon into a clean bowl. Cream the butter and sugar together in another bowl until pale and fluffy. Gradually beat in the curds, eggs, salt, spices and breadcrumbs. Stir in the raisins.

6. Pour the mixture into the pastry case and bake for 20-30 minutes until the filling is set and lightly golden. Leave to cool, then remove from the tin and serve cut into wedges.

 

Hope this helps!

 

BW x

[chickencam]

These are similar fro the Be-Ro book, I learnt to bake from these books because they were pretty much the only books my Gran and Mum had.

 

Sweet Cheese tarts

 

175g - 6oz short pastry

 

filling

 

225g - 8oz cottage cheese

50g - 2oz sugar

50g - 2oz currants

1 egg size 3

40g - 1.5oz margarine/ butter melted

pinch each of cinnamon and nutmeg

 

line patty tins with pastry

mix all other ingredients together and fill pastry cases bake for 15 - 20 minutes. Yummy

[craftyhunnypie]

Thanks! Just what I needed! Yummy.

 

Emma.x

[LJ's Chooks]

ok this may or not be a daft question, but where do you get rennet from?

[Lesley]

You can buy it from www.ascott.biz

 

They also have a vegetarian version.

[Olly]

believe it or not, I've seen it in my Waitrose!

 

My mum used to make curd tart though - without rennet. I don't know if I've got her recipe but it was one of the yummiest things ever. Mmmm. I can taste it just thinking about it!

[LJ's Chooks]

Olly,

 

I'm sure my mum wouldn't have used rennet either... got a feeling it was bicarb or something... any ideas anyone?

[Lesley]

I thought curd tart was made using a soft cheese? - rennet would turn milk into a soft cheese, so you could either start with a bought cheese or make your own using rennet?