Lady Lunchalot

Ok, I’ve been feeling pretty tarty lately. And there’s no better time to feel a bit tarty than spring when the strawberries are plentiful, ridiculously perfect and unbelievably cheap.

Don’t you just love it when one of your favourite foods is in season?!

O bought a lamb back from Horsham on Friday. Not, not a cute fluffy Mary-had-a-little-lamb, but a chopped up lamb ready for the freezer. It was kind of a new one for me because I’ve never had that much meat in my kitchen at one time. He paid $75 for the whole lamb (about 20kg) cut up and ready to be frozen, which is a bit of a bargain considering that you’d pay $20 for just a single leg of lamb.

Anyway, he gave one of the legs away, but the other leg was ABSOLUTELY ENORMOUS! There was no way we could eat that on our own, and it was so huge it would have taken an eternity to defrost if I had frozen it. So there was only one thing we could possibly do. Lamb roast for Sunday lunch with eight friends.

With so many bellies to feed, I could feel the culinary juices starting to flow. I’d planned to do the roast on the rotisserie in my beautiful Ilve, but it was too heavy and the spit wouldn’t turn, so instead I studded it with rosemary, garlic and preserved lemon, basted it in olive oil and lemon juice, and roasted it straight on the oven rack. Carve it up and present it on a platter sprinkled with preserved lemon and rosemary. Deelish!

Dessert needed to be tended to as well. I’d bought four punnets of strawberries on Friday, intending to make some strawberry jam at some point over the weekend. The strawberry jam never materialised, so I thought I’d test my patisserie skills and make a strawberry tart and a strawberry pavlova.

The shortcrust pastry for the tart was basically flour and butter rubbed together with a bit of water, and chilled before blind baking in a quiche dish. While it was baking I made a custard for the filling and halved the strawberries for the topping.

Next came the pav. Ever since I was a kid I have always LOVED pavlova. My dad used to take us to the races at Randwick when we were kids and I remember they had the tallest, fluffiest, crunchiest, crispiest pavlovas imaginable. I’ve always wondered how they got them that tall. Today was the day I was going to build my very own sky-scraping tower o’ pav.

It was your standard meringue - egg whites, caster sugar, a dash of vinegar and vanilla essence, and a litle cornflour for some added structure. I also added a few drops of rosewater to give it that fresh flowery springtime flavour. (I am always a little heavy-handed with the rosewater, and this time was no different.) I piled it high and baked it, turning off the oven and leaving the pav in there to crisp up after the roast was finished and the oven had been nice and hot for a few hours.

Topped with cream and strawberries, this is a dessert that really can’t be beat, and the meringue is so light and fluffy it’s perfect after a heavy meal like roast lamb. It wasn’t as high as the pavlovas in the member’s dining room at Randwick during the 80s, but it was up there. Next time I’ll try and add on a few extra levels and a penthouse by baking it in a springform pan.

Strawberry tart filling

This is a custardy filling that you can use for any kind of fruit tart. If you want to tone down the eggyness (which I think is delicious) fold in some whipped cream. This is not really the kind of dish I should be eating 5 weeks before my wedding (dress fitting this Thursday - ergh!) but I’ve been so good lately I couldn’t resist.

The first step is to half fill your sink with cold water in case you need to plunge the saucepan in there if things are getting too hot and out of hand and you need to cool it quickly. Make sure you have some dishes or something on hand to wash afterwards so you can reuse the water instead of wasting it. (For international readers, Australia is in the midst of its worse drought in 100 years, so water is a very precious resource here. We can’t afford to waste a drop.)

In a largish bowl, beat 6 egg yolks with 2/3 cup caster sugar and a healthy tablespoon of cornflour. Over the stove heat half a litre of milk, a generous blob of cream and a vanilla bean split in half until it just starts to boil. The second it starts boiling, remove from the heat and mix it in with the egg mixture until it’s fairly smooth and creamy. You have to be really quick about this - you don’t want the heat of the milk to start cooking the egg before it’s mixed.

Pour the lot into the saucepan (through a strainer to remove the vanilla bean) and stir constantly over a medium heat until it’s thick and just about to boil. Pour into a bowl and put into the fridge to cool. You might want to put a piece of foil or cling wrap over the top of the custard to stop any yucky custard skin from forming as it cools.