# NTC 3: Lemon Tarts and Gender
Who left writing their newsletter until the last minute? Yup, me, Pete Hindle, with issue three of the No Talent Club, an email newsletter about cooking. You might spot a mistake in the text this week, so here is a meme to make up for that:
Some things I make are delicious - including today’s recipe for lemon tart - but not everything I make is amazing. Cooking is a skill that I’ve practiced, and there was a long period where I was terrible. I still struggle to use carrots, because I don’t leave enough time for them to cook. And beetroot? Forget it! I have no idea how to cook that vegetable, despite it turning up every week in our veg box.
For women, cooking is expected - something that every female person should know, with the idea that is was probably learned from their mother. So when a man cooks, he’s given extra recognition because it’s regarded as unusual. Women’s cooking is everyday, quotidian, even when it tastes heavenly and makes everybody happy. Men’s cooking is celebrity chefs and restaurants, because they get special kudos.
It really shouldn’t be unusual when males cook, because everybody has to eat. That said, this lemon tart is delicious, and anybody will be thankful that you made it, even if it is easy. Nobody else has to know that this tart is easy.
I make my lemon tart the lazy way, so my lemon tarts aren’t beautiful yellow objects. They often have a stray bit of egg-white, and burnt pastry. Where my lemon tart wins is the taste and smell; buttery pastry and citrus, making a kitchen smell like the only place in the house you want to be.
A quick note on zesters:
If you’re doing anything with citrus, you should buy a good zester. This usually means a microplane, a brand name for a type of flat grater with small holes. This will make all your lemon, orange, and lime dishes taste amazing and save your fingers from being cut to shred. As a bonus you can use it for all your regular grating, such as hard cheese for topping pasta. They might seem a little expensive but the benefits of being able to have a little lemon zest on any meal is really worthwhile.
Things you need for this recipe:
Microplane zester (see above)
A 20cm tart dish
A bowl for mixing
A spatula
Pastry (pre-made roll from shop, buy the stuff for cake/tarts))
baking beans (I use uncooked dry chickpeas, but any dried bean is fine)
Ingredients
3 eggs
2 lemons, zested and juiced
125g sugar
125ml cream
Recipe
Turn the oven on to 180, and while it’s warming up, prepare the pastry. Grease the tart dish with butter or vegetable oil, and lay the pre-made pastry face-down in the pan so that the side with baking paper is face-up. If you want to, you can trim the pastry at this stage. Fill with the dry chickpeas, and bake for 20 minutes. After twenty minutes, take the dish out and remove the baking paper and hot baking beans. Put the pastry dish back in for another few minutes - between two and five, but no more! - so that the pastry is a bit crisper.
Turn the oven down to 140
Take the lemons and zest them with your fancy new zester. Then juice the lemons.
Mix the three eggs, the sugar, and the cream together. Then throw the lemon juice and zest in (see note below), and whisk it with all of your strength. Pour it into the pastry and bake for about 25-30 minutes.
The tart is ready when it’s a little bit jiggily in the middle. Open the oven and move the dish with your hand (wear a glove!). The centre of the tart should move a little bit, but not too much. If you bake it too long, it will still taste nice. If you don’t bake it long enough, you can either put it back in the oven, or you can put it in the fridge when it’s cooled down.
Note:
The recipe I have originally said to use two egg yolks and two eggs, but then I have two egg whites just sitting in the fridge. Luckily one egg is about the same, it just means your lemon tart is a bit less rich.
The recipe also said I should add the juice to the lemon, sugar, and cream mix, and then strain it to remove any clumps, and then add the zest. This adds more washing up and more time to the recipe, so I just beat the egg mixture really good. This is fine. They taste the same.
I can't find a good picture of my lemon tarts, but here's one from a workshop I attended at Linz Kunstuni this year. I'm a terrible student, but I bring a lot of cakes to classes, so it seems to work out. By the way, this lemon tart goes amazingly well with blueberries.
Listen:
I’ve been enjoying Lucy Dearlove’s series Lecker, which is podcast in English, even though it has a German name. She’s doing a mini-series about kitchens. If you like thinking about food, this is an enjoyable listen.
Be Nice To Others
Arts Emergency are a UK-based charity that help young people get involved in the arts and humanities. With the past decade of right-wing government in the UK, we’re seeing a roll-back of social mobility. This means that it’s harder for people from non-rich backgrounds to work in the arts.
Next week:
The forecast for next week is rain, rain, rain, so I am going to be cooking some soup.