Golden Gate Gardener

Sweet Lemon Braised Fennel

I grow Florence fennel, from one of the varieties of fennel that produce large, white, aboveground bulbs (if the plants get good soil, plenty of water, and are adequately spaced in a garden). I wrote about this crop a couple of days ago, with photos. Here is a recipe that turns the anisy-flavored raw vegetable into a sweet, mild, not-anisy at all, cooked vegetable. Cooked fennel has its own unique flavor. I encourage you to try it.

Sweet Lemon Braised Fennel

one large fennel bulb (or up to 4 small ones)        Juice of 1/2 lemon--or more, to taste

3 Tablespoons of butter or margarine                    salt and pepper if desired

1 Tablespoon olive oil                                                 1/3 cup chicken or vegetarian broth or water

1/2 teaspoon granulated sugar

    1. Trim root and leaves from the bulb(s), leaving only the fat, white leaf bases. Quarter the         bulb(s) though the root end, or, if large, cut in 8ths. If your bulb is huge, as mine was, cut so   that no slice is thicker than about 5/8 inch at the outside edge. Try to get some of the core on each piece, so that the leaf bases remain attached, but if some bits get connected, save these and use them too. Rinse any dirt from the base of the bulb as you go, and trim dirt off of a good piece, if you can't wash it off.

The usable pieces are in the rear, in the front on the board, are mainly leaves, stems, etc. that will be discarded.

          2. In a large skillet (cast iron is good), melt the butter or margarine together with the olive oil, over medium heat. Add the fennel pieces and brown them nicely on both sides.  (You may have to do it in stages, a skilletful at a time if you have a lot. Put browned pieces on a paper towel on a plate while you brown some more.) You may have to add a little more butter and oil if you are cooking several batches of fennel. Reduce the heat to medium low, return any pieces you have set aside, and sprinkle them, in the skillet with the sugar and lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper if you desire. Turn with a spatula, gently, once or twice to mix the ingredients, and then continue to sauté until the fennel is glazed and brown.

Fennel slices in the skillet at the start of the browning process.

    3. Add the broth or water and braise, tightly covered, for 10 minutes, adding more broth if needed. (If you are not limiting salt, you can use bullion.) When the fennel is tender, but not falling apart, transfer it to a serving dish with a slotted spoon.

Braised fennel in the skillet ready to serve. 

    If you like, add another half cup of broth, more lemon juice, and  a little more butter, whisk it together and serve it over the fennel. Note: I have never tried this, but it was in the original recipe, so I offer it for you to try.       

Growing Florence Fennel

Florence fennel is a domestic plant that forms a fat, white aboveground bulb. It is not known in much of the American nation because it needs a long, cool season in which to grow, and this is unavailable in most U..S. microclimates. However, the cool climate near the Pacific coast provides just what the plant needs. It is a high value crop that uses the fall/winter season, when rainfall is likely to help with water needs as fall progresses. I have been growing this crop for several years and encourage you to try it. 

The best time to grow Florence fennel is in late summer, so that it matures into and winter. Most varieties will bolt (flower) if you plant them in spring. 

This is a seedling of the Florence fennel variety 'Prelude,' photographed on September 6. I planted the seed on August 4.  Next week I will harden off the seedlings and the following week, I will plant them in my garden. It is important not to leave seedlings in too small a pot for too long, as they have a tap root, and you don't want the tap root to be malformed by pushing against the bottom of the pot. (You can sow the seeds directly in the garden as well, but I only get to my community garden once a week, so I want to transplant relatively large seedlings rather than starting from seed when possible, though I may have to water twice a week at first, even so.)

There are varieties said to be able to form bulbs, rather than bolting to flower when planted in spring. (That is, they will grow upward, into flower stems, rather than forming a good bulb.) I have not tried them all. The one I did try, 'Perfection' formed smaller bulbs than my summer-planted 'Prelude'. I will need more trials to see how others perform when spring-planted. Others that are said to form bulbs from a spring planting are 'Finale', 'Zefa Fino' and 'Selma Fino'. 

In any case, 'Prelude' has made very fat bulbs for me, wider than tall. Some varieties form bulbs that are a tad taller than wide. Harvest when the bulb is 3-5 inches across, but mature size will vary depending on the variety you are growing, and you will learn the best size for the one you are growing. I harvest them one at a time, eating each before I remove the next one, so they get a little bigger as I go along. The plants are very patient in winter, not bolting as I eat them one a period of a month or two.

Just be sure you have nice rich, well-drained soil and water it deeply whenever the top inch or so is dry. Also, plant seedlings at least 6 inches apart, and 8-10 inches apart is preferable. 

Here is a photo of a mature fennel bulb. Note that it is not very near to other plants, so it can mature well.

Raw fennel is used in many sophisticated salads, to which it adds a anise or licorice flavor. Cooked, is has a mild. sweet. unique flavor, not at all anisy. I will post soon with a couple of recipes for using cooked fennel. If you dislike raw fennel I strongly suggest that you try it cooked in a couple of dishes. 

 

Flower Border--Arugula in Bloom

Ah spring. I am just posting to show a photo I took of a spring border that happened in my backyard garden. I grew arugula in a bed I had lined with hardware cloth. After I ate arugula in salad, with pasta, and on pizza all winter, it bloomed. (And I have even been eating the arugula flowers in salads.) I have the pericallis (the purple daisy) because I don't pull all of it out when its seedlings appear. The pericallis and arugula flowers together made a handsome border, the arugula in the bed and the pericallis at the foot of the broken concrete retaining wall that defines the bed, along the decomposed granite path next to the bed. I found that the stems of arugula blossoms are a good cut flower as long as they still have buds at the top, lasting nearly a week. I used them in mixed bouquets, but not with the pericallis, which doesn't last very long. Still, I find the pericallis splendid in my garden in April and May. 

The pericallis, which you may know as cineraria, is the same as the short blooming plants that florists sell in pots. It reverts to a taller plant when it self-sows in the garden. It's a hybrid of several similar plants that are all native to the Canary Islands, off the NW coast of Africa. It is perennial here in San Francisco, which is similar to the foggy, mild winter, low rainfall, native habitat of several of the species that created the hybrid. (It would be unhappy where summers are hot, and would not thrive where winters are very cold.) It will always bloom in a range of colors and bicolors, from white to blue purple, generally with many magenta-flowered plants. I have several white ones, one of which has bloomed three years in a row just by a step into my patio. If you have pericallis in your garden, and you want to introduce a wider variety of colors, buy a couple of florists' potted cinerarias with interesting colors and let them form seeds in your garden. Many people especially like ones with blue purple flowers (see photo). I wish there was a way to predict flower color from a seedling, but if there is, I haven't discovered it.

Blue-purple pericallis flowers

The arugula and the pericallis are both almost done blooming now by late June. I am letting the arugula seed fall in the bed and cutting back the pericallis. I will probably plant carrots where the arugula is growing, and will eat the arugula seedlings I pull from the bed in summer.

 Oh, did you notice the white foxglove at the end of the border, by the fence. I moved several foxglove seedlings there last summer. I didn't know what color the flowers would be, but I did let seed drop from a white one last year, so I was hoping some would be white. It's a biennial, so the plants that are small now will bloom next spring. I cut the stems of most of my foxgloves when they finish blooming, before seed can ripen since each plant drops hundreds of seeds and I have plenty of seedlings. 

The strappy leaves in the left foreground are of Naked Lady plants, Amaryllis belladonna. Those leaves are gone now. They yellowed and dried up. Now there will be a bare spot there until the "naked" flower stems form in August or September. 

Try "Gigante" White Runner Beans

For several years I have been growing Gigante beans. These are big white beans that are really runner beans.. Like Scarlet Runner Beans, they are often perennial in the Bay Area. Mine come back year after year. Right now, in mid May, I have leaves and blossoms on plants that have come back from living roots and some living vines. 

As you can see, the blossoms are white, or pale yellow, instead of red. Not as decorative, I suppose, but still pretty, and hummingbirds may prefer red, they will feed at other colors. I would not have blossoms this early on plants growing from seed, though. (Sometimes the plants that survived from last year even bloom in April, but this year March was so cold that garden plants slowed down a bit.) 

So why bother with a runner bean that doesn't have red flowers? Because the dry beans are so delicious and useful. They are larger than those of red runner bean.  The name "Gigante" is the one they are known by in Europe. In Greece they are cooked and then marinated. You can do this yourself, for a delicious treat that is pricy to purchase (Maybe $5.99 a pound.) (I will add a recipe at the end of this post.)

I have also used the beans instead of favas in traditional bean/vegetable soups, such as the ones in Clifford Wright's book The Best Soups in the World, such as Vegetable Soup (p. 154) or Sicilian Beans and Greens Soup (p. 152). In these soups, the large fava beans (double-peeled)  are backed up with an equal volume of small white beans, so that one has beans in the soup between bites that contain the large beans. 

Incidentally, you can also eat the young pods or Gigante white runner beans, which, like those of scarlet runner beans have a fine beans flavor. However you do have to catch the pods when they are very young, since once the beans form, the pods become tough.( Also, a plant that is forming beans will make fewer new pods.)

Marinated Gigante (White Runner) Beans © Pam Peirce 2023

1 cup dried gigante Beans—soaked             3 Tbsp finely chopped parsley

    and cooked until just tender                       2 Tbsp finely chopped sundried tomatoes

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil                          (If they are very dry, soak in water and drain, then chop.)

¼ cup Kalamata olives, chopped finely       2 tsp white wine vinegar

2 Tbsp shallot, finely diced                            1 tsp lemon juice

                        Chunks or crumbles of feta cheese (optional)

 

Drain the cooked beans and add the other ingredients. Put in a container with a tight cover and let the contents marinate at least 3 hours or overnight. Refrigerate them if you aren’t serving them right away. 

Serve them as an appetizer or just put a small bowl on the table during a meal to be shared as diners eat the meal.

Note that the ingredients in this recipe are flexible. If you lack one, just leave it out. 

Resource: Each winter I leave a few Gigante Beans at the San Francisco Potrero and Portola Branch Libraries, which have seed libraries. You really only need one or two plants for a few cups of harvested beans. Tell me (in a comment) how they turn out if you take some.)

 

Minestrone alla Genovese with New Zealand Spinach

In my last post, I gave a recipe for frittata that included New Zealand spinach. I have continued to look for new ways to use the plentiful New Zealand spinach that grows in my garden. Here is my most recent discovery. First, though, here is a photo of the plant itself. To harvest, I break off and use the top 4 or 5 inches of as many stems as I need to make the amount of spinach I need.

New Zealand Spinach growing in a San Francisco Garden in November.  

It is tolerant of both cold weather and hot weather. 

Minestrone Genoa Style with New Zealand Spinach

I started with a recipe for Minestrone Genovese on page 27 of the book The Pleasures of Italian Cooking, by Romeo Salta.(It is the cookbook that introduced American diners to Northern Italian cuisine.) I chose this recipe because I had harvested a very large leek and had some dried beans of various kinds and plenty of New Zealand spinach. The recipe called for kidney beans and common spinach, but I substituted. It also called for macaroni and for a little diced bacon, but I didn’t want to use them and the soup was delicious without either.

2 Tablespoons olive oil                                   2 Quarts of water or stock

1 Cup grated carrot                                        3 Cups of cooked beans

1 Cup chopped onion                                         (I used Christmas limas)

2 leeks (white and light                                   1 teaspoon salt

   green parts) sliced                                       Black pepper (up to 1/2 teaspoon)

2 Cups diced potatoes                                    3 Tablespoons minced fresh parsley

2 Cups chopped New Zealand spinach           1/2 teaspoon basil (2 teaspoons fresh)

2 cloves of garlic, minced

Heat the olive oil in a skillet and cook the carrot, onions, leeks, potatoes, and spinach in it for five minutes. In a pot mix the water or stock, beans, salt and pepper and cook over low heat for one hour. In an electric blender, puree the parsley, basil, and garlic. Add this to the soup. Cook about 20 minutes longer. Serve with grated Pecorino or Parmesan cheese.

I used vegetable stock I had made by cooking the leek tops and cutting celery stems and leaves with a bay leaf and some thyme, then straining out the solids and keeping the stock.

Beans just about double in size when you cook them—maybe a little bit more. To reduce the gassiness they can cause, either soak in a lot of water overnight drain them in the morning, add fresh water and cook them, or boil unsoaked beans briefly in a lot of water, drain them, and then cook them in fresh water.

New Zealand Spinach in a Frittata--Recipe

Frittata Made with New Zealand Spinach

Adapted from Beyond the Moon Cookbook by Ginny Callan

This is nice as a dish for breakfast or as a main dish for supper. If you have grown New Zealand spinach, you know it can produce quite abundantly and that recipes using it are rather rare. This frittata is a delicious use for it.  (It can also be made with regular spinach, but don't be surprised if diners like this version better.)

 

Vegetables:

2 Tablespoons of Olive Oil—or use no-stick spray oil

½ cup chopped onion

2 cups coarsely chopped New Zealand spinach

 (young stem tips--about 4” long—and the leaves that are on them)

½ teaspoon dried thyme or oregano

About ¾ cup chopped tomato (fresh or use canned petite diced, drained)

1/8 teaspoon salt

 

Eggs:

4 large eggs or 1 cup Reddi-egg

1/8 teaspoon salt

A shake or two of pepper

 

Cheese:

1 cup grated cheese (sharp cheddar is good)

 

Sauté onion in oil until it is soft—about 5 minutes. Stir in the New Zealand spinach and the thyme or oregano. Sauté about 3 minutes more, until spinach is just tender. Remove the skillet from the heat and stir in the tomatoes. Drain if it is watery, stir in salt.

 

Beat the eggs with the salt and pepper. Use no-stick spray in an ovenproof skillet or in ramekins, and then pour the eggs into it or them. Cook over low/moderate heat on the stovetop until the eggs start to set—4-5 minutes. Remove from the heat. Add well-mixed vegetables to the top, being careful to spoon them evenly over the surface of the eggs.

Here the vegetables have been spread over the partially cooked eggs,  in 2 ramikens,

Top with shredded cheese. Broil in an oven or toaster oven, setting the frittata about 3 inches from the heat, until the eggs have solidified, and the cheese is browned. About 4-5 minutes.

The frittata has been broiled. Half has been removed to a plate and eaten. 

If you used a skillet, slice the frittata into wedges.

This photo shows a double batch, made in a skillet to serve 6 people for brunch.

Serve warm.

For dinner, serve with sliced oven-roasted potatoes and a green salad.

Plastic in my Front Garden

I planted some midsummer flowers in my San Francisco front garden on Monday. In the 15 square feet of the garden where I was planting, I found 27 small pieces of plastic, from an insect sauce cup lid clearly marked as recyclable to a tiny bit of a white electrical cable. I am not in a particularly intensely occupied part of the city, either.

We are drowning the earth in plastic. It started out as a boon to humankind, but now it is polluting our oceans and land. The micro plastic bis enter our food chain and poison us. Please find out what you can do to become a part of the solution rather than the problem. 

For scale this pile is 8 or 9 inches across. 

Here is a close up of a small part of the pile. 

I pick up lager trash whenever I see it, but it takes a planting day for me to look closely and see all the tiny bits of trash that have landed in my  urban front yard. 

Golden Gate Gardening New Edition--August 1

 

The cat is out of the bag because the announcement is now on booksellers' websites. Barnes and Noble and Amazon have even posted the entire new Introduction to Golden Gate Gardening 4th (30th Anniversary) Edition. It will be released on August 15, this summer. The book has been updated throughout, with current information on  plant varieties, seed and plant sources, resources, for gardeners, and suggested additional reading, There are also changes throughout to the latest information on gardening techniques, pest management, etc. The book has been updated to explain where we stand currently in the ongoing climate crisis. (While our change so far has not been as dramatic in terms of earlier springs as it has been in some Eastern locations,  it has become more chaotic, leading to more severe drought and more frequent wildfires. It already has caused disruption of our fruit trees' annual cycle, and has led to heat inland spells too hot for plant growth!)

This book has helped many gardeners get the most from our mediterranean climate. If you are concerned about drought, which we know will return despite this year's wet winter, you will be particularly interested in learning about growing food in the fall to spring season, which takes advantage of what rainfall we get, along with reduced sunlight, to grow many kinds of food, such as broccoli, lettuce, artichokes, and snap peas will little or no artificial watering. 

If you are primarily an ornamental gardener, you will appreciate the expanded list of ornamentals that bear edible flowers. Decorating a salad or a cake with flowers you can eat adds beauty and celebrates the joy of being alive! You will also like the new lists of cutting flowers that tolerate coastal cool weather and ones that tolerate summer heat.

You will be glad to read about the new Open Source Seed movement, which lets public interest crop breeders register their new varieties as unpatentable, avoiding the Monsanto-driven efforts to prevent such breeding by slapping patents on plant traits. And if you buoy seeds, you will be glad to find out where to buy these unpatentable varieties. 

New pest management ideas will improve your ability to escape pest damage. Notable improvements are newly available better root baskets to prevent varmint damage and new biofungicides to manage plant diseases on the plants and in the soil.

The new edition includes the same recipes, from an easy potato leek soup to a moist and delicious chocolate cake that includes shredded beets--a mystery ingredient. And it has the same great planting charts, to help you choose when to plant in 4 different regional microclimates, from coastal to hot summer inland climates like that of Walnut Creek or San Jose. (The inland charts have been reassessed by Master Gardeners in those regions, and have been slightly revised/updated.)

Above, I have posted the new cover, which I think it so much more inviting than that of the Third Edition. I hope you love the new GGG and that you will come to a book event next fall or spring and say hello. There will be books for sale at those events, and I will sign one to you or to some lucky person who will. get the book as a gift.  It will also be available at many of our region's  independent bookstores and at some nurseries and food stores. 

I will post information on all of my future appearances on the events page of this blog and also on my website, pampeirce.com.

 

 

 

 

New Biofungicides Pit Bacteria Against Garden Fungi

March 21, 2023 New York Times, Science Times, D5 announced the discovery of compounds made by bacteria that kill pathogenic fungi in both plants and animals by riddling them with holes. It has proven effective against Botrytis cinera, or gray mold, and against Candida albicans, a fungus that cam infect the human body.

            The Times story was about the naming of the new compounds keanumycins, after an actor who has held “many iconic roles in which he is extremely efficient in ‘inactivating’ his enemies, Keanu Reeves. (Mr. Reeves says he thinks the naming is “pretty cool,” though he thinks it might have been more appropriate to name the compounds after John Wick, the killer he plays in a recent film.) While the article contains no information to suggest that keanumycins are available in any commercial product at present, there has been much research in the area of biofungicides recently. However, some new products do protect plants against gray mold.

The strawberry on the left is so badly infected with Botrytis, or gray mold, that it will never enlarge or ripen.

            This disease is common in humid locations, such as in a greenhouse or near the coast in and near San Francisco. You may have seen it on strawberry fruits, where it makes a very obvious gray mass. It also grows on leaves and flowers of susceptible plants such as tomato, rose, German primrose, and painted tongue (Salpoglossis). I used to tell gardeners that their best defense against the disease was to pick off all traces of infected plant material before it could spread spores. This is still excellent advice that you should act upon whether or not you have another tactic. You can also select plants for a humid garden that have smooth or waxy leaves and fruit that is not soft. (This is easy unless you have your heart set on growing tomatoes, roses, or strawberries.)

 

Botrytis shows itself as colored spots on the petals of roses. To reduce its spread, pick up all fallen rose petals and deadhead spent roses. 

            However, you may also want to try products currently available that promise to kill Botrytis cinerea. The ones I know of contain the soil bacterium Bacillis amyloliquifasciens D747. One formulation that contains it is sold as Revitalize. You can get it as a concentrate or in a ready-to-use spray bottle. It can also be used as a soil drench to control a number of diseases that start there. Also on the label of products containing this bacterium are anthracnose, bacterial leaf blights, black spot of roses, various leaf spots, and powdery mildew. Those diseases are controlled by the product. Only suppression, not control, are promised for downy mildew, early blight, fire blight, and scab. In all cases, it is best to apply the product before the disease shows up or in its very early stages.

            The main point is that a considerable amount of research is taking place in the area of biofungicides, some that has resulted in products already on the market, others in the pipeline. So, it is a good idea to start studying the offerings of your local, environmentally responsible garden center and reading the labels. You will already be pleasantly surprised, and more, even better surprises are likely to come soon.

An Apple Tart--19th Century Style

Recently we attended a Dickens Dinner Party, sponsored by the Bay Area Culinary Historians (BACH). We were asked to make a dish for the dinner from a recipe that was in a cookbook of the era. I chose to make an apple tart, using apples from our tree. The following photos are from the making of my "test tart," the one I made in November, just to see how it would turn out. To see photos from the actual dinner, see the Facebook page of BACH, though for some reason they didn't catch an image of the two tarts I brought to the dinner. 

A tart is like a pie, but the crust often contains a little sugar, maybe some egg, and the tart is much flatter than a pie. You can make a "rustic tart" on a cookie sheet, by just flipping the edges of the crust over the filling all around, but a classic tart is made in a tart pan, which has a removable bottom. This way you can have a nice fluted crust. You can leave the tart on removable bottom after removing the ring that produces the fluted edge. I used 10" tart pans. 

The recipes I used for the crust and filling follow. They are from Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management, also published as Mrs. Beeton's Cookery Book, Originallly published in 1861, British Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/10136/pg10136.html

Apple Tart

For making a Tart there were several crust, or “paste” recipes. I used the one titled “Another Good Short Crust” For the tart filling, she used the recipe for “Apple Tourte or Cake.” Recipes as they appeared in the cookbook follow, first for the crust, then for the filling, with my notes after each.

___________________________

ANOTHER GOOD SHORT CRUST.

1211. INGREDIENTS.—To every lb. of flour allow 8 oz. of butter, the yolks of 2 eggs, 2 oz. of sifted sugar, about 1⁄4 pint of milk.

Mode.—Rub the butter into the flour, add the sugar, and mix the whole as lightly as possible to a smooth paste, with the yolks of eggs well beaten, and the milk. The proportion of the latter ingredient must be judged of by the size of the eggs: if these are large, so much will not be required, and more if the eggs are smaller.

Average cost, 1s. per lb.

______________________________

To make a single tart of this crust, try:

½ lb. flour

4 oz. (1/2 cup of butter)

Yolk of one egg

2 T sifted sugar

1/8 pint milk (1/4 cup)

Notes: After spending some time looking for an equivalent between cups and pounds of flour, and finding that there is not an exact equivalent, I weighed the flour on a kitchen scale.

When I had added all the ingredients called for, I  found I needed to add a small amount of cold water, in tiny increments, to get the dough to form a ball and clean the bowl—being careful not to “work” the dough, which would develop the gluten, making the crust tough.

I would ordinarily make a pie or tart crust using Smart Balance margarine—better for you than butter.

I open a grocery bag into a large sheet of brown paper and cut it in half to use for crust-rolling surfaces two different baking events. In the above photo, I have rolled the dough and am inserting the flat bottom of the tart pan under the dough. I will slide it from several angles to free the dough from the floured paper, then center it under the dough, which I have rolled large enough to go up the edges of the pan all around. Then I will set the bottom into the ring and carefully set the extra dough into the ring. 

In the above photo, I have set the bottom into the rim and trimmed the extra crust by hand, to the level of the top of the ring. If you look closely, you will see s few patches in the crust, where I added a bit of dough to mend tears. If it doesn't stick, I have added a drop of water to moisten the place it has to attach, then pressed it in gently.

 

Filling recipe:

_____________________________

APPLE TOURTE OR CAKE.

(German Recipe.)

1236. INGREDIENTS.—10 or 12 apples, sugar to taste, the rind of 1 small lemon, 3 eggs, 1⁄4 pint of cream or milk, 1⁄4 lb. of butter, 3⁄4 lb. of good short crust No. 1211, 3 oz. of sweet almonds.

Mode.—Pare, core, and cut the apples into small pieces; put sufficient moist sugar to sweeten them into a basin; add the lemon-peel, which should be finely minced, and the cream; stir these ingredients well, whisk the eggs, and melt the butter; mix altogether, add the sliced apple, and let these be well stirred into the mixture. Line a large round plate with the paste, place a narrow rim of the same round the outer edge, and lay the apples thickly in the middle. Blanch the almonds, cut them into long shreds, and strew over the top of the apples, and bake from 1⁄2 to 3⁄4 hour, taking care that the almonds do not get burnt: when done, strew some sifted sugar over the top, and serve. This tourte may be eaten either hot or cold, and is sufficient to fill 2 large- sized plates.

Time.—1⁄2 to 3⁄4 hour.
Average cost, 2s. 2d.
Sufficient for 2 large-sized tourtes. Seasonable from August to March.

_____________________________

I divided the recipe in half to produce filling for one tart:

5-6 cored and peeled apples in slices (these were medium-sized, not very large, fruits.)

Sufficient sugar to sweeten—see above (I used about ½ cup per tart--for 5-6 apples.)

Zest of ½ small lemon (I zested a lemon that was grown, without sprays, on our backyard tree)

1/8 pint of cream or milk = ¼ cup (I used Half and Half)

1 ½ beaten eggs (3/8 cup of egg—approximately, if you want to use egg substitute)

1/8 lb. butter (1/4 cup) (melted)

slivered almonds—I used the ones from Trader Joe’s 

Notes: I used homegrown apples that were sweet with no tartness, hence I used the lower amount of sugar suggested for an apple pie by the Joy of Cooking book recipe. Our apples are of an unknown variety, but may be Baldwin, which is an American variety that was first grown in 1699. While the recipe is British, if these apples are Baldwins, at least they'd be appropriate to an earlier era. 

I used real eggs for the tarts I brought to the dinner, but egg substitute for the single tart I made as a test, which was easier since I could easily measure a “half egg.” It didn’t seem to make a difference which I used.

The milk, egg, and sugar make a custard that you pour over the apples. The melted butter is not pictured here. I mixed the custard ingredients and then poured them over the apple slices and mixed them in. 

Then I arranged the apple slices in the crust and poured the rest of the custard recipe over them.

There is no oven temperature in these recipes, in keeping with the fact that the cook was probably using an oven fueled by wood or coal. I set my gas oven for 375° I baked the test tart for 45 minutes, and thought it was sufficient, but perhaps a bit longer would have been better. I determined to bake the  tarts for the party for an hour. After I had prepared the party tarts, I was short on time, so I set the oven for 380°. I baked the tarts for an hour and they were done, but had I baked them at 375° they might have needed a bit longer.

The recipe called for just cutting the apples up small. I sliced them into thin wedges and arranged the slices  in whorls, hoping for a more attractive tart, but the combination of the custard in which they are set and the addition of slivered almonds somewhat masked the design, so they could probably have just been cut small and spread without such care with satisfactory results.

I didn’t strew any sugar over the top when it was baked. It didn’t seem to need it.

The following link is to a half-hour video on making an apple custard tart—it is very helpful to watch someone actually make a tart. Two important tips I got from the video are:

1. To get the crust onto the false bottom of the tart pan, slide the bottom under the crust.
2. After the tart is baked, to remove the sides from the tart pan, place it on a wide jar or other sturdy object and carefully free the sides so the ring will drop off. (On the test tart, I used a small hammer to tap gently on the ring in order free the last part of it. At the party, I used a knife to help free the ring, which some of the custard had spilled onto and caused it to stick.

I found it particularly helpful to watch these two techniques being done.

https://www.joyofbaking.com/AppleCustardTart.html

In an earlier photos, I have shown how I slipped the tart pan bottom under the crust. The following photo shows how to get the ring off of the bottom. I used a small bowl. At the party, I was provided with a small straight-sided crock. 

Here is a close up of the test tart. I used sliced almonds for this one, but for the party I used slivered almonds, as directed by the recipe. Slivered almonds are cut into  square strips, while sliced ones are in thin slices. (I suspect that sliced almonds were not available in the mid-1800s.)

When I was finished making the two tarts for the party, I had some crust dough and apples left over. I made a 7” “rustic tart” in a pie pan, folding the edges of the crust over the apples, clafouti-style. It had less of the custard liquid in it, since I had poured most of that into the tarts, but the apples were coated with some of the custard, and the results were tasty all the same.

Modern cookbooks are more likely to give recipes for “tartlets,” small individual tarts. There are even very small false bottom tart pans made for this purpose, or they can be made in muffin tins, or on a flat pan, simply with pinched corners to keep the filling in. I rather liked making larger tarts, which were beautiful, and which result in less crust per slice and more fruit filling.