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.

Adrian Cooks

This year was the first time in 16 years I celebrated my birthday without any of my 7 childhood friends around. I managed to have a belated celebration with them last year when I visited KL in late November. I thought I would do the same this year but it didn't happen. Although I felt something was missing but I still had a very good time with many firsts:

Oil painting of Totoro from Yim.


Homemade Strawberry Cheesecake from Gate. (Note: the studio maid, Ba Dom, poses at the back)


Todd bought me my first alcohol in 4 years: tequila shot. I got sore all over my neck and shoulder the next day.

There's also a sketch of a Yogini in Tree pose from Peewee, and birthday song sang by my favorite Baritone, Or. Not to forget my Thai good friend, Nook, whom spent the day with me while my husband was busy at work.

Nook taking picture of the foods at The Deck, Arun Residences.

An outrageously expensive Japanese dinner at Tsunami. Although the staffs sang me birthday song and gave us complimentary Japanese melon as birthday treat, still, it's waaaay overpriced.

Months before my birthday I told Adrian I wanted nothing but his cooking. There's a history that leads up to this:

Two years ago when we just met, I told him I wasn't the cooking type. He on the other hand told me he did. I thought what a great deal: my man is handsome, smart AND he cooks! Two years into that conversation I, the one who didn't cook, now have a food blog. Adrian, still handsome and smart, was yet to show the third quality that I so valued. Something was amiss, I thought.

So I got him to promise to cook for my 29th birthday. Despite the fact that he was busy on my birthday, I wasn't the slightest unhappy because of what's to come the following week. He was going to make me breakfast but I wasn't going to let him get away with that - a breakfast and a dinner.

I caught glimpses of him surfing the net for recipes. It made me happy. Finally came the big day. I came home after a morning rehabilitation work with my client to a spread of brunch. On the table was polenta (sun-dried tomatoes, onions, cheddar) served with mushroom and fried egg - an adaptation of my Parmesan Polenta with Chili-Roasted Mushrooms; Pomegranate Salad with Maple-spiced Pecan and Honey-mint Lemon dressing; and the best smoothie he ever made with yogurt, frozen blueberry and dried fig!

I was so happy he did it for me. Imagine how excited I must be for the dinner to come! He was to make it the next evening. In the afternoon he mentioned he would go to work the next afternoon and that he would make me dinner another day. I was very very very disappointed and didn't speak to him for the rest of the afternoon. He noticed my long face and was concerned. I told him how I felt and he said he was going to do it but hadn't had the chance to tell me. That put the smile back on my face. How easily manipulated I am.

He wanted to make enchilada but given the time factor, he decided to go with something easier and less demanding. I'm not sure what it's called. This is what I gathered:

1. Sauteed together yellow pepper, red pepper and spinach.
2. Blend firm tofu, cheddar, cream cheese and cream.
3. Mix them all together.
4. Layer phyllo dough over a baking dish, fill it with vegetables. Cover with more phyllo dough. Sprinkle with poppy seeds and bake.
   

It was a bit bland to taste. But we figured there's a lot of room to play with the ingredients. For instance, roast the vegetables; substitute tofu with feta cheese; use a mixture of cheddar and gruyere; etc.

So there's my 29th birthday. Birthdays are always good :)