Tuesday, December 16, 2008


Passionfruit Lemon Curd

Last Sunday I delivered some flour to a couple of baking friends and one of them gave me a bottle of Passionfruit Lemon curd. She made it from Tan Hsueh Yun's recipe. It was so super yummy that I was already scraping the bottom of the bottle within a day.

I had made a batch of Levain baguettes to go with it. Since my craving for it has not been sated, what I can do but to roll up my sleeves and make some for myself. Thankfully, all the ingredients for this delight is easily available and cost next to nothing. The only thing I lack is Hsueh Yun's recipe, ironically. My wife had cut out the recipe and filed it in her collection of recipes but they were somewhere in the house and I haven't had the faintest clue where it was. My wife was not in but as I did not want to bother her or my friend, I decided to follow Martha Stewart's recipe because I was confused by Dorie Greenspan's list of ingredients. The only extra ingredient was the pulp from five Passionfruits.

I got myself 3 large jars of 'sunshine' for my efforts, thanks to Hsueh Yun for such an inspired combination of flavors and of course to my friend for her gift which inspired me much.

Update
Hsueh Yun wrote to me and was so kind to send me a copy of the recipe. Thanks to the link which she sent, I was able to get an online copy of the original article with the recipe. It can be found here:
http://www.soshiok.com/articles/8815

INGREDIENTS
6 lemons
250g cold unsalted butter, cut into 1cm cubes
450g caster sugar (add 50g more for a sweeter curd)
250ml passionfruit pulp, from 6 passionfruit
8 large eggs
METHOD
1. Zest the lemons using a fine grater, set aside. Then juice the lemons. You should get just over 250ml of juice.
2. Fill a pot about 25cm in diameter with water up to the one-third mark. Bring the water to a simmer.
3. Turn heat down to low. Sit a glass, heatproof bowl about 30cm in diameter on the pot, making sure the bottom of the bowl never touches the water. Add lemon zest, lemon juice, butter and sugar into the bowl.
4. Stir the mixture with a wooden spoon until the sugar and butter melt.
5. Add the passionfruit pulp and stir to mix well. Taste and add more sugar if needed.
6. Crack the eggs into a medium bowl, beat with a fork just to break up the yolks, then strain the eggs through a metal or plastic strainer into the curd mixture.
7. Continue stirring. Adjust the heat so that the water in the pot does not come to boil. It should remain at a gentle simmer.
8. After 20 minutes or so, the curd should start to thicken. Watch it carefully, keep stirring and when the mixture coats the back of the wooden spoon, the curd is ready.
9. Take the bowl off the pot and spoon the curd into clean glass jars. Cool completely, screw on the lids and refrigerate. It will last about two weeks in the fridge.


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