The Herald - The Herald Magazine
Lemon and pistachio meringue roulade
FINISH your dinner party in style with this delicious and impressive dessert. It’s retro but is still as good now as it was all those years ago.
Ingredients serves 6-8 Meringue
5 x egg whites 270g caster sugar
Lemon Cream
(Setting time around 2 hours) 105g lemon juice
2 x lemon zest
140g sugar
3 x whole eggs
1 x gelatine sheet, softened in water
225g butter
150g pistachio nuts, shelled and roughly chopped
Method
Pre-heat oven to 200c/Gas mark 6 First make the lemon cream.
Place the lemon juice, zest, sugar and eggs into a large bowl. Whisk all together then place this bowl over a simmering pan of water.
Keep whisking occasionally until the mixture begins to thicken. Once thickened add the softened gelatine sheet and whisk in the butter. Pass this through a sieve into a tray and allow to cool and set in the fridge.
For the meringue, place the egg whites in a large mixing bowl. With an electric whisk or mixer gradually start to whisk until the eggs start to foam and stiffen up. Add the sugar slowly until stiff peaks are formed.
Gary Townsend is head chef at One Devonshire Gardens by Hotel du Vin, Glasgow. See www. hotelduvin.com
Grease and line a large Swiss roll tin with greaseproof paper and spread the mixture evenly over the base of the tin. Bake in the over at 200c for 8 minutes then lower the temperature to 160c for around 15 minutes.
Remove from the oven and turn out on to a sheet of greaseproof paper and allow to cool slightly for around 10 minutes.
Lightly beat up the lemon cream mixture and spread over the meringue. Scatter over a generous helping of the pistachios. Gently roll up the meringue from the shorter end until a full roll has formed. To make it easier you can score lines on each turn of the roll. Serve with whipped cream and extra pistachios.
prosperous families sitting around tables bedecked with china, canteens of cutlery kept for special occasions, pristine table cloths, fabric napkins, and glassware that has not yet surrendered its sparkle to dishwasher dullness.
Browsing a magazine, I came across a ‘tablescaping’ brand called Mrs Alice, brainchild of Alice Naylor-Leyland.
She says that the interest in table-setting, already trending last year, has gone into overdrive with the lockdowns, as people stuck at home turn their attention to enhancing their dining areas.
Alice’s lavish Christmas tablescapes make me feel inadequate and poor. They heave with bone-handled antique cutlery, impeccable porcelain, hand-embroidered linen table mats, crystal candelabra, ornamental silvery stags and toadstools, and fresh flowers, the latter colour-themed to match the hue of the water tumblers.
A blue and white Enchanted Forest Tablescape from Mrs Alice costs £350 for a four-person set. Not cheap.
Yet I do share Alice’s love of a wellset table. You can “get the look” on your Christmas table for a fraction of that cost, by, for example, strewing it with goldsprayed squashes and sprigs of berried holly, or winding fronds of ivy from the park around your undistinguished candle holders.
But why confine the art of table setting to Christmas? Why eat from that battered plate when you have that Sunday Best china shut away in a cupboard?
In the current anxiety-ridden climate, let’s grasp every opportunity to build positivity and beauty into our daily lives, whether it be a candle, a laundered napkin, or a welldesigned knife that is a pleasure to hold.