TGIFOOD
What’s cooking today: Traditional melktert
In honour of National Melktert Day on Saturday 27 February, and with a nod to the old colonial style of the great C Louis Leipoldt, here is a recipe based on the famous one in SJA de Villiers’ Cook & Enjoy.
This is a companion recipe to this piece by Tony Jackman about the classic milk tart
Adapted slightly from the traditional milk tart recipe in SJA de Villiers’ Cook & Enjoy (revised), written more or less in the style of Leipoldt’s time.
Make a paste by rubbing a tablespoonful of butter with a half cupful of self-raising flour. To this add a tablespoonful of castor sugar and a pinch of salt. Beat a large egg and mix this in to form a firm dough, which must then be pressed into the greased base of a pie dish and worked towards the edges and up the sides. Prick this with a fork and refrigerate till required.
Preheat your oven to 220℃. For your filling, boil two cupfuls of milk with a stick of cinnamon and the peel of an orange or indeed of tangerine should you have it to hand.
In a saucepan, combine four tablespoonsful of sugar, three tablespoonsful of cake flour, one tablespoonful of cornflour and a pinch of salt. Add to this mixture the cooked milk, a little at a time, having discarded the peel but retaining the cinnamon stick, and stir it over a low heat till it has thickened.
Remove the cinnamon stick and add two tablespoonsful of butter, stirring it well to dissolve the butter. After it has cooled for a few minutes, beat three egg yolks and stir them into your mixture, a little at a time.
Whisk three egg whites with one tablespoonful of castor sugar till thick, and fold in a third of this, then the remainder.
Pour this into your lined pie dish, which you have removed from the refrigerator to return it to room temperature.
Bake it in a hot (220℃) oven for 10 minutes, then turn the heat down to 200℃ for another 10 minutes. Sieve some powdered cinnamon on top or some nutmeg, or both, and possibly some little crosses of citron peel as well. DM/TGIFood
Our Thank God It’s Food newsletter is sent to subscribers every Friday at 6pm, and published on the TGIFood platform on Daily Maverick. It’s all about great reads on the themes of food and life. Subscribe here.
Send your recipes to [email protected] with a hi-resolution horizontal (landscape) photo.
To enquire about Tony Jackman’s book, foodSTUFF (Human & Rousseau) please email him at [email protected]
Become an Insider
As an inchoate beekeeper, I note (and regret) the absence of honey in your “modern” recipe. And aren’t bitter almonds supposed to be poisonous? This cooking thing is so artful.