Marcus Wareing Cooks a Custard Tart

Custard Tart With Garibaldi Biscuits by Marcus Wareing


Ingredients

*

garibaldi biscuits

* 3 5/8 ounces butter, melted in a saucepan
* 3 5/8 ounces icing sugar, sifted
* 3 5/8 ounces plain flour, plus extra for dusting
* 3 5/8 ounces egg whites
* 7 1/16 ounces currants
* pastry dough
* 8 ounces flour, plus extra for dusting
* 1/16 teaspoon salt
* 1 lemon, zest of, only
* 5 1/3 ounces butter
* 2 2/3 ounces caster sugar
* 1 free-range egg yolk
* 1 free-range egg

custard filling

* 9 free-range egg yolks
* 2 2/3 ounces caster sugar
* 2 1/8 cups whipping cream
* freshly grated nutmeg

Directions

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4.


First, make the biscuits. Mix together the butter, icing sugar and flour until smooth. Slowly add the egg whites, stirring, until they are completely incorporated, then fold in the currants. Bring together into a ball, wrap in cling film and chill for at least one hour.


Roll the dough on a lightly floured surface out to 5mm/½in thick. Cut into 12 rectangles - you may have some dough left over. Place on a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper, ensuring the biscuits are not touching each other. Chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Bake the biscuits for 8-10 minutes or until golden brown. Remove and cool on a wire rack. Keep in an airtight tin.


For the pastry, rub together the flour, salt, lemon zest and butter until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add the sugar, then beat together the egg yolk and whole egg and slowly add these, mixing until the pastry forms a ball. Wrap tightly in cling film and refrigerate for two hours.


Turn the oven down to 170C/325F/Gas 3.


Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured surface to 2mm/one eighth-in thickness. Use to line an 18cm/7in flan ring placed on a baking sheet. Line with greaseproof paper and fill with baking beans, then bake blind for about 10 minutes or until the pastry is starting to turn golden brown. Remove the paper and beans, and allow to cool.


Turn the oven down to 130C/250F/Gas1.


For the filling, whisk together the yolks and sugar. Add the cream and mix well. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve into a saucepan and heat to blood temperature.


Fill the pastry case with the custard, until 5mm/¼in from the top. Carefully place in the middle of the oven and bake for 30-40 minutes or until the custard appears set but not too firm. Remove from the oven and cover the surface liberally with grated nutmeg. Allow to cool to room temperature.


Before serving, warm the biscuits through in the oven for 5 minutes. Cut the tart with a sharp knife and serve with the biscuits.




Marcus Wareing - Funny video clips are a click away

Gordon Ramsay "dispute" sparks foodie bun-fight

Above: British celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay stands in the kitchen of his new restaurant "Gordon Ramsay at the London" at the London NYC Hotel in New York, November 16, 2006.

REUTERS/Mike Segar
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It's knives and forks drawn in the well-fed world of restaurant reviewers.

Two top-selling restaurant guides -- New York-based foodie's bible Zagat's, and Harden's, a Zagat-inspired tome that's a force in Britain -- are locked in an unseemly spat over their latest London rankings.

And at the heart of the gastronomic stand-off is Gordon Ramsay, the expletive-spewing, global celebrity-cum-chef who is never far from controversy.

Put simply, Zagat's thinks Ramsay is the top dog on the London fine-dining scene, while Harden's believes the best days of the motor-mouth chef may be over.

Marcus Wareing

In its 2009 guide, Harden's gives top-billing to Petrus, a restaurant whose head chef, Marcus Wareing, is a Gordon Ramsay protege. Ramsay's flagship restaurant, Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, is pushed into second place.

"Wareing is emerging from Ramsay's ‘shadow' as the proprietor of what is now clearly the best restaurant in London, and he and his team should be congratulated," declared Peter Harden, the co-editor of Harden's, before adding:

"The Ramsay empire's current performance -- and in particular the poor standard of most of the more recent openings -- raises questions as to its direction, and its ability to maintain its reputation as an operator of the highest quality."

It was a stinging rebuke for Ramsay, who had been at the top of the rankings for eight years.

But as far as Harden's -- motto "To tell it how it is" -- is concerned, it was only a matter of time as Ramsay lent his name to ever more establishments and the quality of some declines.

"Ramsay's not superhuman despite the media myth," Richard Harden, Peter's brother, told Reuters. "Something had to give."

But Zagat's is not so sure and its founder, Tim Zagat, has been outspoken in his disagreement with Harden's decision. At the launch of the 2009 Zagat London guide this week he told the Evening Standard newspaper:

"Harden's are full of s--- and you can quote me on that.

"They attack people every year just to get more publicity. Gordon Ramsay is an easy target for them because of his profile," the paper quoted Zagat as saying.

Harden's responded by issuing a press release that began: "Oh dear, bad language seems to be infectious", an apparent reference to Ramsay's fluency in swearing.

"We're not going to get into a slanging match with a competing publisher," Harden's wrote, before going on to point out how the competing guides were generally in agreement on some of Ramsay's lower-budget eateries if not the flagship one.

Zagat and his wife Tina, who began their guides in New York 30 years ago and have built them into a multi-million dollar global brand, were not immediately available for comment.

Given how competitive the restaurant business in London is, especially at a time when the wealthy are cutting back, the dispute is unlikely to die down quickly.

But for once, and perhaps surprisingly, the only person who hasn't yet stepped into the fray is the man at the heart of the bun-fight: the usually loquacious Ramsay.

Source: Reuters