Having visited their tap and brewery in September 2015, we were extremely impressed by the range and quality of their beers and couldn't wait to get experimenting.
You can see the variety of dishes we came up with here... and the passionfruit meringue pie we made worked so well with the delicious Mango Berlinner that we thought we'd better share the recipe for those of you fond of a sour beer! Sour beers work really well with something sweet to balance... in this case, passionfruit and mango are a match made in heaven. The sweetness of the meringue cuts through the gentle sourness of the beer, whilst the homemade curd zings along in tune with it.
Any citrus fruit will work here, so feel free to adjust the recipe accordingly depending on what you're pairing it with. Obviously lemons and limes produce more juice than a passionfruit, so you will need fewer.
Curd
Juice of 8 passionfruits, sieved to remove the pips
Juice and zest of 2 limes
4 egg yolks (keep the whites for the meringue)
170g golden caster sugar
1tsp corn flour.
Meringue
4 egg whites
250g golden caster sugar
1tsp cornflour
Topping
2 passionfruits
Method
First, preheat your oven to around 180°C.
Start by preparing the pastry. Now this is boring to both read and write about, and I'm sure you will have your own method (ours is buying shop bought [if it's good enough for Nigella, it's good enough for us]), so we'll leave you to it. But however you choose to do it, you will need a shortcrust pastry case around 25cm across, blind baked and ready to fill.
On to the good bit. CURD! Combine the egg yolks and sugar in a large bowl to a paste, making sure to get rid of any big sugar lumps. Into a measuring jug, sieve the passionfruits to remove the seeds leaving the juice behind, and squeeze the limes up to make the juice up to 200ml. Warm the fruit juice up in a pan, leave to cool slightly and then slowly add to the yolk/sugar combo, stirring continually to avoid cooking the eggs - nobody wants a scrambled curd. Once combined, add back to the pan with the corn flour and cook over a low heat, again stirring continually to avoid burning. The curd will thicken after around 4-6 minutes - at this point, remove it from the heat and pour the mixture into your pasty case. Allow this to cool, leaving an orange coloured velvet pool.
Meringue - this can either be easy as pie, or alternatively can get you working up a good sweat. Add all the egg whites to the bowl of a stand mixer, or a large bowl to be hand mixed, and whisk until soft peaks form... in a mixer it should take around 3 minutes, by hand closer to 10 if you're lucky (and determined). As the peaks form, slowly mix in the sugar, trying to keep the air in the meringue, and mix to stiff peaks, then gently stir in the corn flower. Dollop the meringue atop the curd, starting at the edges and pile upwards to a peak in the centre, but ensuring you cover all the curd to protect it from the heat of the oven. Bake for around 20 minutes until lightly golden. Then remove, and rest for at least 30 minutes.
Leave to cool and top with the flesh and seeds of 2 passionfruits. Serve immediately.
Cheers,
Jim
