Pineapple Tarts

One of my favourite chinese new year goodies is pineapple tarts. I absolutely love them and could easily eat a whole box. I decided to try making my own, something I've never done before. I've never even sliced a pineapple in my life! This was a whole new learning experience but I'm pleased to report that it was a huge success (in my eyes anyway) The end result was so delicious, I ended up eating most of what I'd saved for my friends so I had to make a 2nd batch. I will post more about it later if there's anything to add as it's still in the process of being made currently. It's a really time consuming effort but well worth it in the end.
I made everything from scratch so the first step was to make the pineapple jam. I got some lovely pineapples from my local market.

what do you think? not too bad for my first time ;)

I grated the pineapple slices using a food processor and cooked it with cinammon, cloves , lemon juice and sugar. It took a few hours to cook on a low heat and this is the end result.

I left it to cool overnight in the fridge and then rolled them into little balls, well fairly large ones actually but I'll know better next time!

The pastry was simple to make as it was just a case of blending everything together - my favourite kind of recipe :) It was a really soft and crumbly pastry so I was unable to make open tarts. I made 3 different types of closed tarts - a roll with open ends, a round shape and something that is meant to look like a pineapple but actually bears no resemblance. I personally like the round ones the best and they sort of resemble a tangerine with the clove in the middle. This pastry literally melts in your mouth. I'll definitely be making these again in the future.

My fav shape

Pineapple Jam

2 pineapples

1 stick of cinammon

9 cloves

Approximately 3/4 cup sugar (adjust to taste) (I used 1/2 cup white sugar and just over 1/4 cup of brown sugar)

Juice of 1/2 a lemon

Pastry

250g butter

50g icing sugar

2 egg yolks

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon salt

350g flour

50g cornflour

Eggwash

1 egg yolk

1 teaspoon water

To make the pineapple jam:

• 
  
  Peel and cut pineapple into slices.
• 
  
  Grate using a grater or food processor.
• 
  
  Strain pineapple juice. Tip: It makes a really refreshing drink whilst cooking. I got a whole bowful of juice from my 2 pineapples above.
• 
  
  Cook with all other ingredients for jam over a low-medium heat, stirring frequently.
• 
  
  Continue cooking until the jam thickens and dries up. You need the jam to be as dry as possible to make the tarts.
• 
  
  Cool jam completely before using.

To make the pastry:

• 
  
  Cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.
• 
  
  Beat in 2 egg yolks, 1 at a time and mix well.
• 
  
  Add vanilla extract and salt.
• 
  
  Fold in flour and cornflour and mix to form a dough.

To make the pineapple tarts:

• 
  
  Preheat oven to 180C.
• 
  
  Enclose jam in dough and shape as desired.
• 
  
  Brush with eggwash.
• 
  
  Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes until golden brown. Mine took a while as they were fairly large!

Pineapple

Pineapple

Chinese New Year Dinner 2010

Thanks Dave and Ruby for hosting a superb dinner. Unfortunately I do not have any photos of people, just the food :) (typical!) Apologies for the slightly dark photos but we had ambient lighting and I forgot to turn the flash on. To start, we had the traditional 'lo hei' or 'lo sang'

Lovely mix of colours and flavours

with the salmon

Giving it a good toss for prosperity

L to R: steamed fish, chinese mushrooms with dried scallops and spinach, sweet and sour chicken, roast meats - pork & duck

you can just see the bowl of mangetouts at the back and the clear glass bowl had udon noodles with beansprouts

Definitely a feast fit for a king! Excellent food and excellent company, what else could one ask for? Dessert of course! In my opinion, however good a meal is, it's never complete without dessert :) My contributions for the night were tiramisu and red velvet cupcakes. Recipes to follow in another post.

Happy Chinese New Year - wishing everyone a happy, healthy and prosperous tiger year.