COOK
Lockdown Recipe of the Day: Lemon curd
A jar of lemon curd in the fridge offers another alternative to the question, ‘what shall I spread on my toast this morning’. But there are other uses for it: as a filling for macarons, cakes or pavlova, as a topping for ice cream or spread on scones or waffles. If you do spread it on toast, don’t butter it first: it’s plenty buttery already and will melt into hot toast.
This recipe accompanies this column on lemons
Ingredients
Zest of 1 lemon (about 1 Tbsp)
⅓ cup lemon juice (roughly the juice of 3 lemons)
⅔ cup white sugar
4 extra large egg yolks (reserve whites for a meringue or omelette)
Pinch of salt
85 g soft butter
Method
Zest 1 lemon first and set the zest aside, then squeeze the juice of 3 lemons into a bowl, strained through a fine sieve.
Add to the bowl the zest, sugar, egg yolks, and salt. (Not the butter.)
Have to hand the softened butter for whisking in after it’s cooked.
Use a double boiler or, if you don’t have one, a metal bowl over a pot containing about 5 cm of water. Turn on the heat and, when it boils, reduce to a very low heat and place the bowl in it. Immediately start whisking, using a hand-held whisk (it’s worth the effort). Continue whisking for 9 to 10 minutes and the curd thickens.
Remove from the heat and whisk in the butter a bit at a time until all is incorporated.
Spoon into a sterilised jar and cool to room temperature, then refrigerate. It will thicken considerably in the fridge. And your toast will be very happy. DM/TGIFood
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The juice of three lemons yields about 1 cup of juice, in my corner of the world. Is this a typo?