Pistachio tartlets with clementine custard

Recipe of pistachio tartlet (crust only) yield: 10 tartlets

• 1/2 cup + 2 tsps flour
• 1/2 cup + 2 tsps ground pistachio
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• a pinch of salt
• 2 Tbps chilled butter (veg shortening for non-dairy), sliced to 1/4-inch
• spoonfuls of cold milk/ water

Directions:

1. In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, pistachio, sugar and salt. Drop in butter slices and use a pastry blender to cut them as the size of tiny bean. Add milk (or water) very little by little, you only need the mass just holds together, don't make it dough wet nor sticky! Wrap dough, chill in fridge for half an hour.
2. Pre-heat oven 375F. Roll the dough to no more than 1/2 cm thick. Use cookie cutter/glass (mine the dia. 7cm) to cut out circles, lay them into a mini-tart tray. Bake until the edge just turns slightly golden. Unmold to let cool.

Recipe for clementine custard

• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 Tbp corn starch
• 1 Tbp flour
• a pinch of salt
• 1/2 cup + 1/2 cup clementine juice
• one egg yolk
• zest from one clementine (only if your clementine is organic)
• 1/2 tbp butter
• dash of lemon extract

Direction

1. In a bowl, whisk 1/2 cup clementine juice and yolk to combine, set aside
2. In a pot, well mix 1/2 cup clementine juice, sugar, starch, flour and salt, turn the heat on, stir constantly, bring to boil.
3. Add half of the boiling mixture into yolk mixture, whisk immediately (tempering). Then return the whole yolk mixture into the pot, keep stirring and heat (on low) until boil. Turn the heat off, add butter and lemon extract to combine.
4. Spoon the hot custard into the pre-baked tart shells.

For non-dairy version, just spoon marmalade into the pistachio tartlets to serve.

My note:

1. For the shells, I like the above specified method which will yield very flaky texture. I wish it could be more green though, so I may experiment another method (which will yield shortbread-alike crust), in that case I'm probably allowed to increase a lot more pistachio.
2. For the custard, it's very light and not fatty, but in a tartlet it really can go further rich, I'm thinking cheese version, or Bea's egg-enriched version.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------...