grapefruit tart

As a kid I sometimes ate grapefruit with tons of sugar, though it turns out grapefruit by itself is amazing. I am in love with the delicate bitterness, the color–everything.

Among the things you can make with a grapefruit are tarts. And making tarts means you get to make citrus curd. I am even more in love with curd than I am with grapefruit. You heard it here first: curd is the new pickles.

A note on the recipe: I had only a small amount of crust, actually leftovers from a pie I made his weekend. Paired with the small crust the regular amount of curd yielded more than would fit into the shell. I am therefore the lucky owner of a half jar of citrus curd. So far it has been excellent on toast, or possibly in ice cream. Curd and cream experiments to follow.

I used pink grapefruit, but have to imagine that ruby would be marvelous.

Grapefruit Tart

1 pre-baked tart shell (I used this crust recipe)
6 tablespoons butter
zest of 1 grapefruit
a few grates of lime zest
1/2 cup grapefruit juice (in my case the juice of a grapefruit plus a few squeezes of lime juice)
2 yolks and 2 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
dash of salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium saucepan, gently heat the butter, zests, and citrus juices over medium-low heat. In a separate bowl whisk the yolks, eggs, sugar, and salt together. Once the butter and juice mixture is warm and starting to steam, stir constantly and add a few ladlefuls to the egg mixture. Slowly whisk all of the warm liquid into the yolks to temper, and then pour everything back into the saucepan. Stir over low heat for 7-10 minutes, until warm and slightly frothy. Uncooked egg whites make my mouth itchy, so I tend to push the cooking time.

Put the tart shell on a rimmed cookie sheet and ladle in the curd. Place 5 thin slices of grapefruit over the top and then add a bit more curd. Cook in the oven until the curd is set, 8-12 minutes.

Cool for 20 minutes and serve. I kept my leftovers in the refrigerator and they were delicious.