Mango curd tartlets

[curious aardvark]

well it's saturday and I'm currently watching the eurovision song contest.

why ?
why not lol
The russian grannies were hilarious. one of the worst performances I think I've ever witnessed - and that's saying something.

I'm not sure it's possible for a north american to understand the full cultural avalanche that eurovision has become. But from the point of view of the british, who generally look down on our europaen cousins. It's treated with much patronisation and cynicism. Plus it's generally hilarious
(and usually lots of good looking scantily clad women - which can't hurt)
Oh god I'd forgotten about jedward - ireland really really don't want to win lol

Anyway while I was waiting for it to start, I decide to make some munchies.

I already had some fresh mango cut up.

So mango curd tartlets it was.

Methodology for the curd and pastry is identical to this thread

Only real difference are the starting recipes.

Mango curd

3 large eggs
4 oz vanilla sugar
3 oz melted butter
8oz finely pureed fresh mango
6 tbs (english dessert spoon) lime juice

semi-Biscuit type Pastry

4oz self rising flour (plain flour with 1/2 tsp baking powder mixed in)
4oz plain (all purpose flour)
2 oz margarine
2 oz butter
about 1/3 tsp finely grated nutmeg
1oz castor sugar (finely ground sugar - not icing sugar, though that would work too)

These amounts will make between 3-4 dozen tarts. I made 3 dozen and had some curd and pastry left (just couldn't be arsed to go get another tin), maybe enough for another 8-10 tarts.
I used approximately one heaped tsp curd per tart. It's quite thick so you can sort of pile it up in the small cases.

One thing I did differently to the lemon curd tarts. I blind baked the cases for 4 minutes in a hot oven before adding the curd and cooking for another 20 minutes in a medium oven. Made for a light crisp tart :-)











Well I just have to add - jedward weren't the worst - not by a long shot. Wonders will never cease !

Purely for the record - I voted for iceland and italy.
and moldova - just because: 'my trumpet will make her love me' - genuine lyric

[Fire it up]

well it's saturday and I'm currently watching the eurovision song contest.

Says it was held in Baku, Azerbaijan...
Where the Hell is that?
Doesn't even sound like a real country

So I'm guessing it's sort of like American Idol but with different European nations competing?
Never saw American Idol but I have been watching the newest season of Americas Got Talent, but only cause Howard Stern is the new judge.

Dunno if you know much about Stern over there Alex but he is the man who single handedly changed radio and there has never been another radio talent like him.
$500 million dollar radio contract and $15 million a year to do AGT

Anyways, I'm a HUGE Howard Stern fan, F Don Imus, F Bob and Tom and all those other "shock jocks" who tried to steal his material and who he ultimately crushed

Also a huge fan of that there mango curd, have done the lemon before but can honestly say I've never had mango curd, really intriguing

Bookmarked and on the list

Had to see where Azerbaijan was.
Right on the Caspian sea, near Turkey and Georgia, but a little too close to Iran for my likes...

Should send Ahmadinejad some of those mango tartlets, maybe he wouldn't be such an evil bastard if he got a package of those tasty treats.

In closing I would like to say...

BaBa Booey, BaBa Booey
Howard Sterns Penis
BaBa Booey!

[curious aardvark]

yes I know who howard stern is.

only guy to play himself in the film of his life.
had no idea he pulled in that kind of money.

Well eurovision isn't really a talent contest. More of a declaration of the modern europaen political spiderweb of political connections.

denmark always votes for sweden, greece always votes of macedonia, all the eastern europaen block vote for each other.

How on earth sweden won I'll never know. Just a bog standard modern 'dance' track.
Although as one of only a handful of countries that can afford to put it on next year - it was probably rigged by the IMF.
Azerbijan is an oil rich country so they could afford to throw a bunch of people out of their homes, and build a multimillion euro stadium just for the contest. And the fact that the halftime act was the presidents son in law - just had to be pure coincidence (although I quite liked it).
I suspect sweden will do it with a little more style and a lot more fish :-)

The single strangest thing about eurovision is that israel has an entry. One year they won with a transexual called dana international.

Told you eurovision was different - israeli transexuals and a couple years ago it was won by a finnish soft metal band called lordi. Actually quite good.

The absolute worst ebtry this year was some albanian bird who just screeched out of key for a bit while appearing to be nailed to the stage by her weird looking dress.
hang on I'll find it it's worth seeing, though you might want to put your fingers in your ears for the 'chorus'.

skip to 1:40 for the start of the true horror and 2:10 if you have eardrums of steel !
Apparently it's modern jazz - seems about right to me

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZdHeywmuk0&feature=related[/yt]
And it got actual votes ! Seriosuly people voted for that woman screeching.

OH and britain came last No way in hell could we afford to put it on.
poor old engelbert humperdinck (76) not the best way to end such a long career

Oh and here's the 2006 winner from finland. It's about as good as eurovision ever gets - really, that's not a joke.
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mh3hj9-J76Y[/yt]

[sweet_magnolia]

Fabulous job, Alex! They look delicious!

[curious aardvark]

Just about to make another batch of this - bought a bunch of well cheap mangos last week and they're just about perfectly ripe now :-)

So I'm going to modify the original recipe slightly.
less suagr and less lime juice. only reason I put that much lime juice in was because it was too sweet.
You see mangos are a lot sweeter than lemons (I know, who'd have thought it ) So you don't need all the sugar.
:-)
I Might actually lose the sugar entirely if the mangos are sweet enough. And drop lime juice to 3 tbs.

let you know when I've made it.
The idea is to get a really heavy mango flavour. the first batch was much too similiar to the lemon curd for my liking. Don't get me wrong I ate all 36 tarts my own self. By the time I'd decided to drop some round next door there weren't enough left so I had to eat them all - it was tough