#crystallised ginger

@dduane's "Food and Cooking of the Middle Kingdoms" is a bit light on sweet dishes, so when we encountered a bag of Lithuanian "tvorog" - cheese curds - in the local supermarket, minds turned to a common historical version of cheesecake, and this is the result.

The basic recipe is a Yorkshire curd tart, of which there are plenty. Foods Of England (website parked, check Archive) has just one example, along with numerous other curd-based dishes.

This has the characteristic Steldene tweak of being a bit spicy, hence the crystallised ginger and a touch of ground chilli. In this case it was Habanero powder, added with great caution. A scant half-smidgen was enough for a pleasing tingle; next time (half the bag of curds remains) I'll add a little more to find out what happens.

What is a smidgen? This is... :->

As always, this chilli addition is meant to enhance the taste, not be some daft macho challenge that ends up in the bin, so start small.

Ingredients

225 g ready-made or home-made shortcrust pastry

50 g butter

50 g caster sugar

1 medium egg, beaten

1/2 tsp mixed spice (include a little ground chilli of your preferred hotness, if desired)

grated zest and juice of 1 lemon

225 g curd cheese, or drained full fat cottage cheese

75 g crystallised ginger, chopped

3 Tbsp milk or cream

Method

Preheat oven to 180°C/160°C fan/350°F. Line a 9 inch/18 cm pie dish with baking paper or grease with butter.

Roll out the pastry on a floured board, and then line the prepared pie dish with the pastry.

Beat the butter and sugar together in a large bowl until it is light and fluffy.

Add the beaten egg, mixed spice, and lemon zest and juice, then mix well.

Add the remaining ingredients, and then spoon the filling into the pastry lined pie dish.

Bake in the middle of the preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the filling has set and is turning golden brown.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the pie dish. Serve cut into slices at room temperature.

Note: even when cool the freshly made pie is crumbly; left overnight it gets firmer but will never be as solid as a cream-cheese cheesecake.

If fresh cheese curds, curd cheese or tvorog (look in shops selling Central European groceries) are hard to find, you can use drained full fat cottage cheese instead.

The original "Yorkshire curd tart" recipe called for standard dried fruit such as sultanas, raisins or currants. Chopped crystallised ginger was our adaptation. You can see the bits here, and the rather crumbly nature of the filling.

Crystallised ginger is more sugary than dried fruit, so watch out during baking: you can see where "just nice" was heading for "too much".

It was, however, still "just nice", and there's a lot less curd tart now than when these photos were taken.

{19.05.21}

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