Lemon Tart

Rosa's Lemon Tart

Its nearing mid June, yet here on the Westcoast carefree warm summer days seem very far away. The garden is sluggish and I've only just worn my sandals for the first time. My yearning for extended warmth and blue skies has recently has me thinking about the French Riviera and magical days spent in that oh so cliched (for a reason!) part of the world. When I yearn for such memorable days, I usually aim to recreate them with the best way I know how - food! And so with a handful of lemons I whipped up this light, lemony Lemon Tart or Tarte Au Citron, and remembered fondly a day in Nice 3 years ago.

Nice, France is a city I can't wait to return to. Its a beautiful, vibrant city with an Italian feel due to the colourful painted buildings , Italiate architecture and an attitude all its own. The people there certainly will identify themselves as being proud Nicoise before French, a place worthy of such pride. 

Nicoise cuisine is full of bright vegetables and interesting flavours derived from an up and down history of foreign domination. Socca, the chick pea flour pancake seen above is the famous street food of the city. To be eaten quickly, its cheap, and readily available throughout town and  in simple cafes or on outdoor picnic tables. Commonly washed down with a tumbler of cheap local rose wine, I crave it regularly and have wished a stove top version made at home might suffice. Another thing to draw me back there of course is the Rose. We drink copius amounts of it we drink when in this parts of the world and no wine brings back memories of place more than this. Rose is abundant in the French Riviera, and cheaper, and as you can see by this photo I took of the rose section in the Monoprix, there's much more of it there than in my local liquor store. I weep for such selection.

I once took a cooking class in Nice from food fellow blogger, Rosa Jackson - cookbook author, teacher, blogger, guide book editor and fellow foodie extraordinaire. This proved to be one of my favourite travel memories and a day I hold dear. After wandering the vibrant Marche Cours Saleya ogling huge local Menton lemons, shiny Provencal strawberries, and baskets of wild thyme, we made our way through the narrow lanes of the Old Town stopping in quaint family run shops full of the best of everything. We gathered my favourite Cote de Provence wine, the best goat cheese and the freshest hen. Over the course of the next few hours a grand lunch would be prepared where we roasted, chopped, sauteed and baked everything needed for a proper French lunch. Of course ratatouille was enjoyed, in fact it was stuffed into squash blossoms and zucchinis and served with deeply flavoured Guinea fowl and braised white asparagus of the season. 

The meal continued with a goat cheese that I count as 1 of the single greatest cheeses I have ever eaten, only available to her and a chef at the grand Louis XV in Monte Carlo and Rosa herself. Talk about connections! But what ended that lovely lunch eaten slowly with rose in hand and lovely company from Canada, Boston and Nice was a lemon tart that had me moaning inappropriately. 

Lemon Tarts are my specialty and indeed close to my heart. I'm rarely impressed by many, as they are often too sweet, have bad pastry or worse yet not even made with real lemons. Yet even with this sort of malaise, I still keep my eyes and nose tuned to the possibility of a good one. This tart remains one of my favourites and I loved that I took home this technique and recipe from such a memorable experience. Each time I make it I think of that afternoon, that week, that beautiful place.

Meyer Lemon Tart

Lemon Tart turns 2 today! Happy Birthday to me! I feel proud that I'm still here, still taking pictures of my food (and better ones, luckily!)and still writing about it. I'm so grateful that there are people the world over who read my words, leave comments, share their triumphs and a passion for food with me. And I still have so many things I am passionate about I want to share with you : my love of tea and wine, cheese and chocolate and memories of my travels.

For those of you who've been here before, thank you. I hope I've inspired you to cook something new, I hope you've learned something from coming to these pages and I hope I've entertained you. For those of you new to this site, I sincerly hope you'll return. And as a birthday present to me, if you've enjoyed some of what I've done here pass along a link to a friend, or if you haven't already subscribed to receive updates via email, please do so you never miss a post. I love hearing from you, so don't be shy and leave a comment. I love dialogue about what's cookin'!

In honour of this day I am doing what seems appropriate : making another lemon tart. You already know my favourite, but there are still some other candidates for runners up. I've chosen this one because, like that favourite, its so easy. There's no cooking of the filling and you don't even need to juice the lemons. You simply throw everything into a blender and whir for a few minutes then dump into the precooked tart shell. Its richer and creamier than my usual because its got butter AND cream, but is still elegant and light at the same time. I'm quite smitten with it.

As a birthday present to myself I've just got my hands on the first of the meyer lemons and because I do so adore them, I've chosen to make this a Meyer Lemon Tart. Because you use the whole lemon, a Meyer is the perfect candidate as its pith is less bitter than a Eureka lemon. But don't despair. If, like many people, you can't find any of those fragrant and expensive Meyers, this tart can just as beautifully be made with regular lemons. 

A Proper Lemon Tart : 100th Post!

 

I can't believe its here! My 100th post. When I started this blog, it had taken me close to a year to actually do it. I wasn't convinced I had anything new to offer the world FULL of food bloggers, but I was reminded time and again that I did have something to say, to share and to learn for myself and so I decided to call it Lemon Tart, took some pretty pictures, struggled with creating a custom banner and hit "publish" and put it out there. I've learned quite a bit about food photography and writing and how I like to tell a story and hopefully show you a bit of who I am through food. I've discovered that so many of my fellow bloggers are kind, generous and as excited as I am about the world of food and in this experience I've found my community. I've also learned tremendous respect for  those amazing bloggers who've not only been doing this for years, but still manage to post weekly or even daily. I'm still working on that, and I promise those of you who've continued to return to these pages, that the next 100 posts are going to go much faster than the first. I still have so much to share with you!

In the beginning I decided I would do it until it no longer fed me, and that was was my simple goal. Well, its turns out it continues to feed me, and hopefully my readers too, and I can see many more "100" posts to come. Thanks to each of you who have continued to return, thank you for your comments and your interest in what I have to say. While I can say I started this little blog of mine for myself, I continue to do it for you.

So celebrations aside now, I must say its rather shameful of me to call my blog lemon tart with nary a recipe for a lemon tart to be found.  If you are a lover of that sweet and tart, soft and crunchy, most classic of all desserts, look no furthur. Today I'm sharing my most trusted lemon tart recipe. It is the first one I ever made, the first dessert that I made money and fans from, and so many lemon tarts later, still the one I consider a benchmark for my idea of the perfect lemon tart. Its also the easiest lemon tart recipe I've come across. This tart is exactly that, almost mouth puckering. All too often lemon tarts are too sweet and lacking in lemon. This recipe has just the right balance and has a secret ingredient - oranges! Yes, I know it seems sacrilegious, but it simply balances all the ingredients and gives a sweetness in place of sugar. You can't detect the orange, but its essential for the roundness of flavours. You'll be amazed!

And I have others I want to share with you: a tart that grinds up the entire fruit for the filling, a deconstructed filling that adds cold butter to an already cooked lemon egg mixture, a whipped version I learned in Nice, and a trusted recipe sent to me from a reader and fellow fan of a beloved cookbook author. There are just so many lemon tart recipes out there so stay tuned for more lemony goodness! My love of the lemon tart does not waver and it goes down as one of my top three favourite desserts.