Rich curd tart

Rich curd tart

So much has been written about the traditional Yorkshire curd tart and its little sisters, maids of honour, that there seems little point in covering ground better done by professional food writers and historians.

For me, a curd tart is simply a reminder of childhood, one of my mother's baking day staples and my father's favourites for his bait box, as we called his packed lunch.

All those years ago, no one regarded it as a special dish, a heritage recipe or even realised in our rural enclave that it was very much a regional dish, rarely ever encountered outside the county boundaries.

Chronologically and geographically it was a different world.

In fact, it was only when I went to university that I realised that we even had our own vocabulary, incomprehensible to the rest of the country. Whereas everyone else simply had tangled hair, mine was full of cotters!

I still make my mum's recipe for traditional curd tart, but can't resist tinkering from time to time and concocted the following, more as a dessert than a simple teatime treat.

Pre-heat the oven to 180ºC
Make a shortcrust pastry using 6oz plain flour and 3oz butter

Remove the handle from a 10" glamping pan or use an ovenproof 10" frying pan or remove the oak handle covers from a 10" frying pan. Alternatively use a 10¼" prospector pan. 
Of course, the new 10" pie dish is ideal.
Grease lightly
Line the pan with the pastry.

2oz butter

3oz sugar

3 eggs

8oz curd or cottage cheese

Grated zest of ½ lemon

2oz raisins, soaked for half an hour in a little rum

1oz candied lemon peel

2oz ground almonds

Grated nutmeg

Beat the butter and sugar, add the eggs and beat thoroughly.
Stir in the remaining ingredients and pour into the pastry case.

Bake for 30 mins, until set.

Serve cold.

© Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2016

www.netherton-foundry.co.uk