Strawberry Mango Coconut Tart

It's George's 25th birthday today (7th May). He has organized and invited us to his birthday party tonight at Mae Kai Dee's Thai Vegetarian Restaurant. I don't know how you feel about it but to me, "part" and "vegetarian" somehow don't click.

Anyway I thought I would be nice and make him a cake of his choice. We went from "something chocolatety with peanut butter" to "monster cookies", and finally settled at Mango Pie. I would have flinched at it because of the pastry but I felt motivated by the pate brisee that I made for this quiche, and immediately said YES to George.

A quick search on internet turned out a whole lot of mango tart recipes but non of pies. "What's the difference between tart and pie?" I could see the "there-she-go-again" look on Adrian's face. He seems to think I'm capable of asking him questions that he has problem answering, which is a rare phenomenon. He told me tarts are small, and asked if I were a tart or pie. I turned to Google. According to Urban Dictionary "tart" also refers to nubile young temptress, who dresses teasingly and provocatively. I'm so tart.

Anyway I decided to make an open-face tart. I managed to pull together ideas from a few different recipe posts to come up with this tart with mango coconut custard filling, topped with fresh strawberries, instead of tart with custard topped with mangoes. How's that?

Sweet Short Crust Pastry

With the success from the last pate brisee, I set out to make this sweet short crust with just the right joyous confidence. I wonder why couldn't I do this before?

• 1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• ½ cup icing sugar
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 125g cold unsalted butter, cubed
• 2 small egg yolks

1. Sift together flour, sugar and salt. Process cold butter with dry ingredients until butter cubes are well coated. Stir in egg yolk and blend gently to combine well. Roll the dough out onto a floured surface, and shape it into a disk. Coat disk lightly with flour. Wrap it in clingfilm and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes, or overnight.
2. When ready, take the dough disk out and let sit at room temperature for 10 - 15 minutes. At the mean time, place aluminum foil tightly over a 9" pie dish. Place dough in the center of prepared pie dish and roll it out to line the dish. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
3. Preheat oven at 180C. Remove from the fridge and cover with another layer of aluminum foil. Place on top either uncooked rice, beans or weight. Blind bake the pastry dough for about 15 minutes. Remove the weight and top layer of aluminum foil. Bake for another 8 - 10 minutes, until the base is golden brown. You may want to check on it from time to time so the edges do not burn. If it does, wrap the edges with aluminum foil and continue to bake until the base is golden brown. Let cool when done.
   

Mango Coconut Custard

I made lemon curd before, and it wasn't that difficult. Looking at the recipe instruction, there's little room for damage. It's true but not. It all went very well with me proclaiming it's going to be great "if the crust turns out fine". Little did I know..... I must have messed up the ingredients proportion somehow - the mixture wasn't thickening into the consistency I needed, even after a good 10 minutes of stirring (that's 5 minutes longer than required). This morning, I took it out from the fridge and sure enough, it's too liquidy to fill the tart. So I reheat the custard, and added to it another tablespoon of corn flour and egg yolk. After yet another 10 minutes (it felt longer) of constant stirring, it finally thickened up.

The recipe below is the improvised version.

• 2 ripe mangoes, flesh only
• juice of 2 small limes
• 1 Tablespoon sugar

• 1 3/4 cup coconut milk
• 1/4 cup sugar

• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup corn flour
• 3 small egg yolks

1. To make mango puree, put mangoes, juice of lime and 1 tablespoon sugar in a blender and process until smooth. Taste and adjust with lime juice or sugar. This makes approximately 2 cups of mango puree.
2. In a large mixing bowl, sift together 1/4 cup sugar and corn flour. Stir in just enough coconut milk to blend. Fold in egg yolks.
3. In a sauce pan, warm coconut milk, 1/4cup sugar and 2 cups mango puree. Do not boil.
   
4. Pour 1/3 of mango mixture into the corn flour mix. Repeat twice more until mango mix and flour mix are well combine. Return the mixture into sauce pan and heat it for another 10 minutes, stirring constantly. The mixture will thicken.
5. Cover it with clingfilm and keep in refrigerator for an hour or overnight.

To Assemble

• Fresh strawberries, halved
• Almond slivers, lightly toasted
  
• 9" Sweet short crust
  
• Mango Coconut Custard

Pour custard over baked and cooled crust. Top it with fresh strawberries. Sprinkle with almond slivers. The tart may be chilled for a few hours before serving although it's best to serve immediately because the custard may make the crust soggy.

Blossom Your Taste Buds to Vegetarian Wonders

Mia and I had this joke about the overt Anusara expression. So when I half-jokingly requested for a theme for the home-cook dinner at her house, she replied with "Blossom Your Taste Buds to Vegetarian Wonders/ - Anusara Mia". John Friend would have been proud.

Mia and Fredrik make the prefect Swedish couple I know. Everything about them just seem so perfect: the tidy white apartment (less so now that Ludvig is in their life), perfect manner, charming charisma, well dressed.... everything about them is just so..... CLEAN. They are like the couple in 70's Sci-fi movies. Like this (except they have blonde hair):

It was a fun night with great companions (and charming baby) where I gladly played Chef de Cuisine and Mia the Sous Chef, Fredrik the Chef de Plunge, and Adrian the Food de-Vourer. I simply can't bear the sight of the mess I made. God bless the dishwasher.

I didn't take the pictures of the dishes - didn't want to creep them out - hence the use of my old photos. Here's a rundown of our dinner menu:

Couscous and Spinach Pilaf with Labneh and Chili-roasted Tomatoes

Exactly the same recipe as Barley Pilaf with Roasted Vegetable and Deep Fried Goat Cheese. We made these changes:

• Labneh instead of deep fried goat cheese. Mia and Fredrik prepared homemade labneh the night before. It's flavored with minced garlic.
• Zucchini instead of pumpkin.
• Organic wholewheat couscous instead of cooked barley.

Again, this dish takes a while to prepare but works well with planning and it never fails to impress even the carnivores. Despite the rainbow combination of colorful vegetables and herbs, the unassuming, darkly colored, cinnamon-spiced lemony caramelized crispy onions always win. My Swedish friends were talking about making this for their non-vegetarian parents back in Sweden during Christmas.

Veggie Inside-out Lentil Burger

An adaptation of the Veggie Chickpea Burger. The patties are made up of lentils, eggs, onions and homemade breadcrumbs. Use black lentils if you may - they hold up the shape better than red lentils. We (or rather Fredrik) sliced the patties into two halves and used Couscous Pilaf as the filling. If you have extra labneh, spread them generously over the cut side of the patties. Mia liked the idea of turning patty into burger bun and called it the inside out burger.

Vegetarian Tortilla Soup

The combination of roasted tomatoes, sun-dried tomatoes and goat cheese sends everyone into ecstasy. The oven-toasted tortilla shell (or taco shell) gave it an interesting crunch.

Vegan Coconut Chocolate Pudding

I was talking to Dan (our chef friend) the morning before and he mentioned "no matter what you cook, how good the main course is, dessert ALWAYS wins". Coming from a pro chef with years of experience, he must be right. This is a relatively easy dessert that you can make in advance. The secret is coconut milk. YUM~ I seriously need to work on my measuring skill: there were 3 large servings left at the end of the night. I took home one. It never hurts to have more chocolate.

Peach Poached with Spiced Coconut Milk

I thought it sounds amazing. The aromatic spiced-coconut milk feels good for the tummy; like a good sweet soup for cold weather. You can make it a breakfast treat by adding some granola to it, or a dessert with fresh whipped cream or ice cream. I top it with some slivered almonds and coconut flakes. Although I like the coconut milk, peaches don't seem to be the best pick. Rice pudding, maybe? I surely have made better use of peaches with broccoli and spinach before. Peaches are meant to be eaten fresh.

Ingredients:
(2 servings)
1 fresh peach, halved and seeded
1 can Coconut milk
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp clove
1 Tbsp brown sugar

Put all the ingredient together in a saucepan and let simmer (not boiling) for 20 minutes. Plate on individual bowls and top with spiced-coconut milk to serve.

Chocolate Pudding Take Two

They are so easy to make I'd be sorry if I had not given them a fair trial. Unlike my previous recipe, these two recipes require only cocoa powder. The best part: they can be ready in 5 minutes (minus the chilling time). Chocolate Avocado is interesting because it requires no heating at all! However, our votes go to the Vegan Coconut Chocolate Pudding - coconut milk rocks!

Chocolate Avocado

(makes 2 large servings)

• 1 ripe banana
• 1/4-1/3 cup raw honey
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2 avocados, mashed
• 1/4 cup, plus 2 Tbsp. dark cocoa powder
• 1/4 cup water

1. Process banana, raw honey, vanilla in a blender till smooth.
   
2. Add the avocados, cocoa powder and process till creamy. Scrape down the sides a few times with a rubber spatula. Add the water and process briefly.
   
3. Store in a sealed container. It will keep for three days in the fridge or two weeks in the freezer.
4. Serve chilled or at room temp.

Vegan Coconut Chocolate Pudding

(makes 2 servings)

• 3/4 C brown sugar
• 3 TBS cornstarch
• 1/3 C Dark Cocoa Powder
• 2 Cups coconut milk
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
  

1. Sift brown sugar, cornstarch and cocoa powder into a medium bowl, mixing thoroughly.
2. Fold in coconut milk and stir to mix well.
3. Heat the mixture over medium heat. Stirring constantly.
4. Remove from heat when the mixture thicken and becomes shiny. Stir in vanilla extract. Cover and refrigerate to chill.