Rhubarb and custard
Sunday, May 2nd, 2010
Yesterday was one of those Saturdays when I wake up early and cannot fall back to sleep. I quietly left the bed, made myself a cup of green tea and some toast with jam. M baked some delicious rye sourdough the day before so I could not ask for a better treat. I settled comfortably on the sofa with a book and spent a blissful couple of hours with Mrs Gaskell. I am nearly finished with Wives and Daughters and loving every page of it.
Later on it was definitely time to give my house a bit of attention and catch up with my every day life. Cleaning, washing, shopping and lots and lots of cooking.
We had a bit of a disaster with our baby plants and the Thai basil is the only one that survived.
It looks so fragile in comparison to the bought one.
Fresh blossoms found their way into our living room. This is bird cherry.
Time for lunch.
Grilling some bread which is later rubbed with garlic.
Topping for my bruschettas are tomatoes with onions dressed in vinegrette and artichoke dip.
Some time ago I have baked lemon cookies.
I really fancied rhubarb and custard, the perfect accompaniment to it are lemon cookies. So I decided to combine the two and make a tart.
The pastry is very simple:
cream 160g of butter (room temperature) with 125g powdered sugar, add zest of 2 lemons and juice of one as well as 1 tsp of vanilla
combine with 260g of flour, 20g of corn starch and 1/2 tsp of salt
chill for 2h
butter the baking tin and heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius
instead of rolling out the pastry slice it (bit like carving meat) and place in your baking tin, press the pasty slightly so the whole surface is covered
chill again for 30 min
bake for 20 min or until golden
in the meantime slice the rhubarb and place in a pan with a small knob of butter, 4 tbsp of sugar and a few slices of peeled ginger
stew for 15-20 min
after the pastry and rhubarb have cooled pour the fruit into the pastry shell, top up with good custard
It is delicious. Next time I would probably place the custard in a separate jug though.
On Friday night I was supposed to go to V&A followed by a dinner at Daquise (a rather shocking website but the food is good) with a friend of mine but she was swamped at work and it didn’t work out. Polish food was on my mind. And then Chihiro left a note in the comments about a new Polish eatery in Elephant and Castle. I was sold.
I know most people hate Elephant and Castle but every time I go I love to look at the Ernö Goldfinger’s development and the beautiful mid century tiling in the scary as hell (after dark) subway.
Mamuska is a ‘milk bar’ or bar mleczny. It’s a canteen style establishment serving very traditional food very very cheaply.
The place have a modern look embracing its location (the E&C shopping center), it looks more like a funky student canteen with modern paintings than your everyday old skool caf.
The food was delicious, just like my mum’s. There were dumplings, stews and schnitzel that covered half of the plate on a mountain of mashed potatoes, all for £5. They also serve full on breakfast for £3.
It’s a great place. And the best thing about it was the clientele, there was a number of nationalities and races, everyone tucking in like it was your regular Chicken Cottage.
