Having a blog and a love of food can be quite advantageous at times. These last few weeks I have had lots of opportunities come my way. As I said in my last post I received a big box of Red Belly Citrus blood oranges and I also received an invitation to the launch party for the Good Food and Wine Show along with a box full of samples from around Queensland. I enjoyed the night and we were welcomed by Alstiar Macleod and Matt Moran. It was great to see so many regions like the Granite Belt and Gympie growing and producing such great products. Don’t forget to enter to win free tickets to the Good Food and Wine Show, the details are on last weeks post for the blood orange cake recipe.

As I had a few blood oranges left and I have really enjoyed cooking with them, I decided to create another version of a lemon meringue tart using Red Belly Citrus blood oranges instead of lemons. When I was in Paris, I often went to see Jacques Genin and indulge in his citrus tarts. He had lemon, grapefruit and lime available at different times. I bought his cook book  “The Meilleur Tarte Au Citron”. I used his recipe as the basis to make a blood orange version and I’am sure you’ll enjoy the result.

Recipe

Pate Sucrée (Sweet Pastry)

175 grams of room temperature unsalted butter

125 grams of icing sugar

60m grams of almond meal

2 large eggs

1 egg yolk

zest from one blood orange

350 grams of plain flour

Directions

Place the butter and icing sugar in a bowl and mix with your hands, until it has the texture of breadcrumbs.

Add eggs and orange zest and mix with your hands again. Sift flour and mix together until it forms a ball then place in baking paper and rest in the fridge for one and half hours or more.

Roll out pastry and place in a greased tart tin with fluted edges. Place baking paper inside the pastry and pop back in the fridge for at least an hour.

Place pastry weights on top of the baking paper and place in a 170 degrees preheated oven for twenty minutes or until golden brown. Then rest until at room temperature then fill with filling.

Ingredients for Blood Orange Filling

The juice of 5 blood oranges

The zest of one blood orange

4 large eggs yolks  save the egg whites for meringue

170 grams of castor sugar

200 grams of unsalted butter

Directions

Incorporate the zest of one blood orange with the eggs and sugar and mix with a spatula. When mixed add the blood orange juice. Transfer to a saucepan and stir over a low heat until the mixture starts to thicken. Sieve the mixture and then pour back into the saucepan and melt the butter into the mixture over a low heat. When melted let it cool to 45-50 degrees.When cool use your spatula to place the filling in the tart.

Meringue

Ingredients

• 200 gm caster sugar
• 4 egg whites
• Pinch of cream of tartar

Method

• Combine sugar and 200ml water in a small pan and bring to the boil, stirring continuously with a wooden spoon until sugar dissolves.
• Reduce heat to medium and brush down sides of pan with a clean, wet pastry brush to remove sugar crystals.

Cook until syrup reaches 115C (soft ball stage) on a thermometer (10-15 minutes).

Start whisking egg whites with cream of tartar in the clean, grease-free bowl of an electric mixer until soft peaks form.

Meanwhile, bring sugar syrup to 121C (hard ball stage). Increase speed to high and with motor running, gradually pour syrup into meringue. Beat at medium speed until cooled to room temperature and meringue is thick and glossy (15-20 minutes).