Eid Custard

This custard could live with being made the day before so that the flavours soak in. It's called Eid Custard because I made it up for a feature I did on Ramadan food: Eid is the celebration that follows the month of fasting and the Middle East LOVES custard and, in fact all things creamy. This is nice...

If you can use a vanilla pod, scraped to get the velvety-tasting seeds out, then do so instead of using vanilla essence.

Ingredients

• 6 egg yolks
• 480ml double cream
• 50g caster sugar
• 2 drops vanilla essence
• 4 dates, chopped
• 40g pistachios, chopped
• 40 skinned almonds, whole
• 1 tbsp orange flower water

Put the almonds into the orange flower water, and shake them around to coat. Leave them to soak.

Using a double boiler, or a heat proof bowl (such as Pyrex) suspended over a pan of gently boiling water, heat the cream until it is hot, but not boiling. Place the egg yolks in a mixing bowl, whisk them, and then pour the hot cream over them in a steady stream, whisking all the time. Add the vanilla essence.

Return the mixture to the bowl you used to heat the cream in (or to the double boiler), and heat over boiling water for ten minutes, stirring continuously. Don’t stop stirring for anything: if you do, all is lost!

After ten minutes, the custard should adhere to the back of a spoon placed in it. Remove from the heat, and cover the bowl with cling film to stop a skin forming on the custard. Leave it to cool for 15 minutes or so.

Add the chopped dates, the pistachios and the whole almonds to the custard and mix them in well. Fill four glasse with custard to the top. Stand, covered, in the ‘fridge to cool and thicken further overnight. Serve.

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