Jane Grigson's Fish Book - Jane Grigson [59]
Serves 6–8
FOR THE PÂTE BRISÉE
200 g (7 oz) plain flour, plus extra if necessary
pinch of salt
1½ egg yolks
about 3 tablespoons iced water
100 g (3½ oz) cold but malleable butter, cut in four
FOR THE FILLING
about 500 g (1 lb) meat from two large crabs
salt, pepper, cayenne, mace to taste
3 eggs, separated
200–250 ml (7–8 fl oz) crème fraîche or half soured, half double cream
about 1 tablespoon each grated Parmesan and Gruyère cheese
For the pastry, sift the floor and salt on to a marble slab or cold Formica surface. Make a well in the centre and put in the egg yolks, 2 tablespoons iced water and the butter. With your fingers, work the yolk mixture together, crushing the butter. Then gradually pull in the flour until you have a soft dough. Add the extra iced water if needed. Use the dough scraper to help you form the ball of dough which should not be tacky. Press the dough away from you with the heel of your hand, two or three times, using a light sprinkling of flour if necessary. Wrap in foil, parchment or cling film and chill for at least 30 minutes or up to 2 days – after that, you can store in the freezer.
When you are ready to make the tart, roll out the dough to line a 23–25-cm (9–10-inch) shortcrust pastry case and chill again. Preheat the oven to gas 7, 220 °C (425 °F) and bake the pastry case blind until firm but not coloured.
For the filling, check over the crab meat to make sure that there are no bits of shell in it. Season it to taste. Beat in the egg yolks, and the crème fraîche or creams, and add the grated cheese gradually to taste. Whisk the whites until they are stiff and then fold them in. Pile the filling into the tart and put in the oven at the same temperature as the pastry case was baked. Lower the oven to gas 5, 190 °C (375 °F) after 2 or 3 minutes and leave the tart for a further 30 minutes, or until the filling is puffed and slightly browned. If you like a creamy centre, remove the tart from the oven while it is wobbly under the crust in the middle.
Serve with a salad and rye or wholemeal bread.
GRAPEFRUIT AND CRAB SALAD
In hollowed-out grapefruit shells, put a salad made of crab meat mixed with some of the fruit’s skinned, diced segments, after first lining the shell with a lettuce leaf, so that it frills slightly over the edge. The rest of the grapefruit flesh can be used for another dish. If you like, also add some diced cucumber or tomato, with wedges of hard-boiled egg.
Put a spoonful of mayonnaise on top of each filling, to which you can add a little brandy if you like. Put a neat piece of grapefruit on top. Serve chilled, with extra mayonnaise and brown bread and butter.
You may substitute shelled prawns for the crab.
POTTED CRAB
In the past, potted meats and fish and shellfish were a practical way of storing food since the top layer of clarified butter kept out the air and preserved the contents underneath in a reasonable manner. They were our equivalent to pâtés and terrines in French cookery. What they often depended on for success was hard pounding by some poor young creature learning his or her trade in the kitchen. As this kind of labour disappeared, so did potted meat and fish, although odd examples survived – often very nastily – in some parts of the country where they had always been made by butchers: some Midlands potted beef I tasted on one of my tours of Britain was as disgusting as any we had been served in our northern boarding school during the war.
Now there is a revival of such dishes, thanks to the introduction of electric mixers, blenders and processors. Indeed, potted kipper and mackerel pastes have become too much of a cliché for comfort.