Tea Custard with Poached Fruit

By ltrodrigu

The choice of fruit used in this dish is important. To play up the tannins in the tea, match the custard with poached apricots or pears, which develop a tannic taste when cooked. Poached peaches would also be a good match.

Ingredients

• 2 cups whole milk
• 2 tablespoons orange pekoe tea leaves
• 5 egg yolks
• 1 1/3 cups plus 1 tablespoon sugar
• Pinch of fine sea salt
• 1 cup water
• 12 apricots, pitted and halved, or 2 pears, halved

Details

Servings 2
Adapted from online.wsj.com

Preparation

Step 1

Infuse Milk:
In a lidded saucepan over medium heat, heat milk until small bubbles form around edge of pan. Off heat, stir in tea leaves. Cover and let steep 20 minutes. Strain milk into a cup, pressing on tea leaves to extract all liquid. Discard tea leaves.

Make Custard:
In a large bowl, whisk yolks, ⅓ cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar and salt until thick and light in color, about 5 minutes. Slowly whisk in infused milk until combined. Pour mixture into a medium saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens and coats back of a spoon. Strain mixture into a bowl, then immediately plunge bowl into another, larger bowl of ice water. Stir yolk-milk mixture until cooled, then cover and refrigerate until cold and thickened, at least 3 hours.

Poach Fruit:
Bring water and remaining sugar to a boil in a saucepan over medium-low heat, stirring to dissolve sugar. Boil 1 minute. Add fruit, decrease heat so syrup is just barely simmering and cook until apricots are just tender, 2-6 minutes (cooking time will vary depending on the ripeness of the fruit). Allow fruit to cool slightly before serving. Serve fruit warm with cold tea custard.