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Add more punch to the zing of lemon curd with passionfruit. Leave its seeds in for visual oomph. -- ST PHOTOS: MARK CHEONG
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Some people always have champagne chilling in the fridge. Others have blocks of chocolate. Open my fridge and chances are, there'll be a pot of lemon curd in it. I cannot get enough of the stuff and I have a kind friend who always gives me a new bottle just when supplies are running low.
Lemon curd is like spoonable sunshine. It perks up buttered toast and tastes delicious stirred into yogurt.
You can also make a quick fruit tart by spooning the curd into ready-made pastry shells and topping them with berries.
Perhaps the best way to eat it is by the spoonful straight from the jar, which I do all the time.
But I never thought to make it myself until recently, when I became a little obsessed with Fage Total, a brand of Greek yogurt. It is thick, creamy and there's even a 0 per cent fat version.
I started eating it every day and so my demand for lemon curd outstripped supply. I needed to make my own, lots of it, and fast.
Around the same time, I began noticing that supermarkets were selling passionfruit. They're available everywhere but the best ones I've bought come from FairPrice Finest at Bukit Timah Plaza.
It used to be that the only specimens you could find in supermarkets were shrivelled-up things that looked very unappetising.
But this new crop of dappled red passionfruit is bursting with pulp that tastes unashamedly tropical, giddily in-your-face.
The thought of a lemon passionfruit curd sounded very appealing, and I was soon in my kitchen, zesting and stirring.
I've come up with something that has the zing of lemon and the punchiness of passionfruit.
I like my curd a shade more sour than most, so add more sugar if you prefer something sweeter. And because I like the look of bright yellow curd speckled with black seeds, I don't strain the passionfruit pulp.
Curd is easy to make. The only hard work involves zesting and juicing the lemons.
A Microplane grater works very well and gets every last bit of zest off the fruit. Just remember to zest only the yellow parts, and avoid the bitter white pith underneath. And there's no need for fancy juicers. My trusty plastic one works fine.
After dumping the ingredients in various stages into a glass bowl set over a pot of simmering water, all you have to do is stir.
The thing with curd is that nothing much happens for about 20 minutes after you add the eggs. Then, quite suddenly, everything happens.
The mixture starts to thicken, taking longer to go round the bowl. What was once a runny liquid now coats the back of a spoon.
That's when you know it's ready. Just spoon the luscious, glossy curd into clean glass jars and you can have a spoonful of sunshine any time you want.
hsueh@sph.com.sg
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