Note: I am currently traveling and may not be able to immediately respond to emails, etc. Thanks for your patience!
This post is excerpted from a post I wrote back in May 2010. The recipe for homemade dan tat in that post is one of the most popular recipes on THIH and the one about which I get the most emails. Enjoy this recipe repeat!
When I was growing up, my parents, sisters, and I would visit our family in Toronto a few times a year. While I most looked forward to playing with my cousins and seeing our grandparents, I always had a special place in my heart for dan tat, a.k.a. egg custard tarts. If you have Asian blood in you, you know what I mean. My aunt knows my love of dan tat, so she always had a box of them whenever we stayed over in her apartment. I could eat three dan tat in one sitting. I jest not. They are about 4 – 5 inches in diameter, so they ain’t tiny (Edited to add by future Jessie: they’re more like 3 inches in diameter. I guess my eyes are bigger than my … dan tat?).
I’ve been wanting to make dan tat for a long time, so with my upcoming trip to China, I figured now would be a great time (Note from present-day Jessie: I do not have an upcoming trip to China, unfortunately. See this page for my China posts from 2010). I scoured the Internet for a good recipe and discovered this somewhat complicated recipe from Edible Memories. Achieving a true flaky pastry is a hallmark of dan tat and requires extra effort that I did not feel like exerting have time for, SO … easy Jessified pastry it is!
Yum, yum, and more yum! I haven’t had dan tat in a few years, so these bite-sized egg tarts were just what I needed. So easy, and so delicious. They taste like sweet egg custard, but very mild. They’re not too eggy because the filling is mostly milk. Smooth and sweet. I highly recommend them!
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 20 minutes
Keywords: bake breakfast dessert snack
Pastry
- 2 cups flour
- 12 tbsp butter, cold (1 1/2 sticks)
- 1 Tbsp sugar
- Cold water
Filling
- 1 egg, gently beaten
- 3/4 cup skim milk
- 1/3 cup sugar
- Splash vanilla extract
If using a food processor, add butter, flour, and sugar and pulse until the mixture looks like cornmeal. Alternatively, sift the flour and sugar together and work butter in with cold fingers. Do not let the butter get too warm.
Pour about 1 Tbsp of cold water into flour and butter mixture and stir, either with a spoon or with the food processor. Continue to add water in small increments and stir until the dough pulls together. Cover with plastic wrap or a towel and put in the fridge to chill while preparing the filling.
To make the filling, stir together the filling ingredients until well combined and there are no yolk streaks.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Flour a cutting board and place chilled dough on it. Roll out dough to 1/4 to 1/2 inch thickness. Use a biscuit cutter or glass to cut out circles of dough. Place dough circles into foil or paper-lined muffin tins and press down gently. Fill dough cups about 3/4 full with egg filling.
Bake for about 20 minutes, or until egg filling gets puffy. Remove and serve either hot, room-temperature or cold.
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Q: What’s your favorite childhood treat?
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I must admit something right off the bat — this post is a lie.
Below is a photographic record of what I ate over the course of one day. While I don’t plan to do this often, I understand many people are curious about how dietitians eat. I know this because invariably when I meet someone, the second question they ask me (after “what should I be eating?”) is “what do YOU eat, oh wonderful, gracious, supreme Jessie, RD?”.*
*Question paraphrased to reflect common sentiment.
So! For one day, I toted my bulky camera around to photograph every bite — just for you, dear reader. Where does the lie come in? That one day was not today (Monday), as the title of this post would suggest, but was, in fact, a Sunday.
Phew. I feel better getting that off my chest.
I feel it is important to show both weekend days and weekdays, since many people, including myself, tend to eat differently on each type of day. Therefore, I present,
Sun-day, SUNDAY, Sunday!
Breakfast, approximately 8 am:
Fuzziness due to the fact that my tripod was just so far away.
Yogurt, 1/2 sliced banana, 1/2 cup frozen blueberries, 1/2 tablespoon chia seeds. Coffee with about 1 tablespoon skim milk (plus another swig of milk for good measure). Missing: one Brazil nut.
This is actually not my typical breakfast. I’ll feature a typical breakfast in a future Monday Munchy. I made this bowl of deliciousness because I wanted to dig into one of my favorite yogurts:
I first discovered this yogurt at a farmer’s market in Boulder, Colorado and have been dreaming about it ever since. When we discovered that a grocery store out here carries it, I did a little celebratory dance right in front of the dairy case, then turned to Peter and said “I’m so glad we moved here!”.
Noosa makes full-fat yogurts only. I have no problem with enjoying them sometimes. They remind me of eating yogurt in China and Scotland, where nonfat doesn’t seem to exist. When eating full-fat yogurts, I just serve myself less (say, 1/2 cup instead of 1 cup nonfat). If I eat a full cup of full fat (and I have), I tend to feel a little funny. My body is telling me “Jessie, this is a sometimes food. Yo.”.
Lunch, about 12 pm:
Leftover food from this Asian restaurant and leftover roasted sweet potato over a nest of fresh spinach (sneaky way to eat more vegetables without even thinking about it). The leftovers were a spicy Singapore rice noodle, kung pao chicken (a dead ringer for the one I had in China!), and a couple of pieces of squid. A glass of skim milk.
Finished with a bite of Peter-made chocolate bar:
Mid-afternoon snack, about 4 pm:
Chobani yogurt, apple cinnamon flavor. I’m not a huge fan of flavored yogurt (Noosa yoghurt notwithstanding). I don’t like fruit on the bottom (too sweet) and I prefer to add my own fresh fruit. Still, this one looked tasty and was on sale. Verdict? Not my fav. Besides the plain, the only flavor of Chobani I like is the passionfruit.
Dinner, about 7 pm:
Pork and noodle dish from one of Peter’s new cookbooks, sautéed okra on the side (note how I follow MyPlate). A glass of skim milk.
Noodle closeup:
I’d planned to give you recipes for both the noodles and the okra, but the noodles were just … bleh. Not much flavor. They’re not ready to be shared yet. Peter made a spicy sweet sauce to pour over the noodles, which gave them a little more flavor.
So the okra recipe it is! Okra is not easy to find in our home state of Connecticut, but here in Illinois, it’s everywhere. I know some people don’t enjoy okra for textural reasons — for those, I urge you to try this recipe, where the okra turns out crisp and flavorful. It’s from James Peterson’s Vegetables, with the optional addition of anchovies and toasted pine nuts. Instead of my usual kicked-up recipe title, I left the original recipe title because there is a large amount of respect for Mr. Peterson in our household (or “my friend James”, as Peter likes to call him).
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 20 minutes
Keywords: stir-fry appetizer side sugar-free gluten-free okra anchovies
- 1 lb okra
- 2 tablespoons olive or peanut oil
- 2 cloves garlic, minced (optional)
- 1 thin slice prosciutto, cut into 1/8 by 1-inch strips (optional)
- 2 anchovies, minced (optional)
- 2 tablespoons pine nuts, toasted (optional)
- 2 jalapeno chiles, seeded and minced (optional)
- salt
- pepper
Wash okra just before you’re ready to use it. Cut off and discard both ends and slice the okra into 1/4-inch-thick rounds.
Heat oil in a wide skillet or wok over medium heat and add okra. Cook over medium to high heat — just hot enough to keep the okra sizzling but not enough to brown it right away or cause the oil to smoke. Stir often.
After 15 minutes, stir in the garlic, prosciutto, anchovies, and chiles (if using) and cook for 5 minutes. Add pine nuts. Season with salt and pepper and serve immediately.
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Happy Labor Day!
Q: What’s your favorite side dish?
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