APPLE, RHUBARB & GINGER TART | Annie Mehra Cannon

APPLE, RHUBARB AND GINGER TART

Those of you who know me know that I live in Kuching, a city in the state of Sarawak in Malaysia, on the huge jungle-y island of Borneo. It's hot here. Or maybe I should rephrase that, it's never cold here. So when the temperature dropped to 24C, the locals - myself included now - put on sweaters and added a duvet to the bed covering. And because the kitchen wasn't sweltering, I decided to make a yummy pie.

Making pastry in a hot kitchen, even with the air con going, is a test of patience and resilience. But in 24C, it's a breeze.

While Sarawak has an abundance of fruit and vegetables, many grown locally and some imported, rhubarb is not on the list of available produce here. But luckily I have a daughter living in the UK and kind friends who live in Australia and at my request, they hav, on occasion, brought me bundles or fresh rhubarb wrapped in newspaper and tucked into their luggage. While customs here are strict about bringing in certain things, rhubarb isn't on their banned, or taxable, list.

So, yesterday, I took my washed, and cut, rhubarb from the freezer, where it's been for 7 months and I combined it with other luscious ingredients to make this tart. Even my husband, Mike, who has an aversion to rhubarb left over from boarding school days ("It's too stringy and mushy!") loved it!

INGREDIENTS

FRENCH SWEET PASTRY

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour (plain flour)

7 tbsp soft icing/powdered sugar

3 tbsp almond meal (ground whole almonds, not almond flour

pinch salt

110g unsalted butter, slightly softened and cubed

1 large egg and 1 small egg

FILLING

6 crisp tart apples of your choice, peeled, cored and roughly cut

4 or 5 stalks of rhubarb, washed, trimmed and cut into small chunks

4 or 5 heaped tbsp caster sugar

juice of 1/2 lemon

knob of fresh ginger, grated

generous sprinkle of cinnamon

not so generous sprinkle of ground nutmeg

METHOD

TO MAKE THE PASTRY

Sift flour and sugar together in a large bowl. Add the almond meal and salt and toss together. Use your fingertips to rub the cubed butter into the dry ingredients until it resembles breadcrumbs. Don't worry if there are some little chunks of butter, that makes the pastry even flakier. Lightly beat the large egg in another little bowl and add to the mixture, blending it in with a rubber spatula until the pastry comes together. Gently form into a ball and wrap in cling film. squash the pastry down into a disc and refrigerate for at least an hour, or longer.

TO MAKE THE FILLING

Meanwhile toss all the filling ingredients into saucepan and heat on the cooktop until the rhubarb has all but dissolved but you can still see chunks of apple. About 10 minutes. Taste the juices. You may need to add more sugar.

Preheat oven to 180C.

Remove pastry from fridge and cut off about 1/3 of it. Roll the rest out onto a lightly floured surface and gently line a pie plate with it. Your filling should be cooled by now so plop that evenly into the pie crust. Roll out the rest of the pastry and with a serrated wheel (or a knife) cut into strips and criss cross across the top of the pie. (I have never mastered looping the strips in and out so I just lay them on top of each other).

Make an egg wash with the small egg beaten with a little water and brush all the exposed pastry with it.

Place on a baking sheet and bake for about an hour. Maybe a bit less depending on your oven.

Serve warm with cream of vanilla ice cream.