Mandarin Curd

You’ve heard of Lemon Curd — so why not Mandarin Curd? Nope, no reason at all it seems.

So I make some, of course. It’s mandarin season after all and my three backyard mandarin trees are very fruitful.

What’s a curd?

The term ‘curd’ dates back to the early 1800’s from English origins. In previous generations it has also been referred to as [insert acidic fruit of choice] butter, honey and cheese.

Modern curd is quite simple but has morphed from several hundred years ago when literally, acidic juices were used to form curds (ie: curdled cream) then separated from the whey (the remaining watery remains) through a cheesecloth. Not so delicious sounding, right?!

Lemon has always held the glory stick when it comes to curd making. Original Lemon Cheese recipes had homemakers ‘rasping hard pieces of sugar against the lemon’s skin’ to remove the zest and extract essence and colour. It sounds like a lot of hard work — and life was.

Lemon Honey likely used honey (funnily enough) instead of sugar, but the result was similar, and Lemon Cheese I figure, likely referred to the clotted texture rather than the processed dairy you’ll find tightly packed in plastic at your local supermarket.

Curd these days is made simply from four ingredients: citrus juice (some call for citrus zest), eggs, sugar and butter. Not a jam, honey, butter or cheese it can be simply described as a thickened velvety custard, a most delicious topping. Many recipes you may discover call for unsalted butter. But always the rebel, I didn’t. After all salt brings out the flavour of things I have learned (yet to be proved otherwise) so for this particular recipe, regular salted butter works just fine.

Fruit curds can be made from just about any acidic fruit that can be juiced (eg: orange, grapefruit, pineapple, mango, berries) but my ‘curd de jour’, particularly in this season, is the delightful mandarin.

What do you do with curd?

Whether it be on hot buttered toast, drizzled over pancakes, dolloped on scones, spooned into tarts and pies, or daintily adorning blini with salmon, or submerged into puff pastry rounds — it is particularly yum added to cream cheese for frosted icing too.

It is a delicious addition to the fridge. Yes fridge. Using real eggs and real butter and NOT commercially processed, homemade curd will last around one week in the fridge. Just as well they are so easy to make, you can whip up a fresh batch in no time!

How to make Mandarin Curd

Ingredients:

• 4 tsp mandarin zest, optional
•  1/2 cup of mandarin juice (juice of approx 6-7 mandarins)
• 3 large eggs
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 50g butter, cut into small cubes, room temperature

Method:

1. Completely up to your personal taste, if you wish to add zest to your curd, finely grate this first. It is easier to grate mandarins whole, I find. Then cut your mandarins in half then juice them, either by hand or a good old fashioned juicer. It should measure approx 1/2 cup of mandarin juice.
2. In a metal bowl, wire whisk together zest, juice, egg and sugar and sit over the top of a saucepan of simmering water. The bottom of the bowl should suspend above the water level so it heats just by the steam alone. Whisk your ingredients together (not the butter, that comes last) in the bowl, continuously. It may get frothy, but keep whisking, as the froth will dissipate. Within 5-7 minutes it will begin to thicken. Keep whisking until the mix has been over heat for a good 10 minutes in total and it resembles smooth, somewhat runny custard.
3. Take off the heat and immediately add your cubes of room temperature butter. Whisk again until the butter has naturally melted into the mix. Your curd is ready store in sterilised jars! It will appear runny but will thicken again once cooled. Allow to cool completely (approx one hour) then refrigerate until firm.

Enjoy!

PS…if you HAVEN’T yet tried making your own Creamy Lemon Curd I have a recipe for that too! It has a slightly different method but is just a delicious.

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