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A Gift From The Chef: Mum's Lemon Meringue Pie

A Gift From The Chef: Mum's Lemon Meringue Pie

by Mireille Kilgour

GoodFood17

There's nothing quite like your mother's cooking. The comfort and warmth of walking in the door to familiar smells, the second helpings that always await you, and that one signature dish that's so good, no other version quite compares. For many of Australia's most iconic chefs, their passions began with their mum's signature home cooking. In the lead up to Mother's Day, our participating restaurants renowned chefs are opening up their mum's cookbooks to share their most loved recipes. This one comes from Taxi Kitchen Executive Chef Tony Twitchett.

Taxi Kitchen Executive Chef Tony Twitchett and his Mum's Lemon Meringue Pie

tony

This is a recipe handed down from Nan (Agnus Glass) to mother (Margaret Twitchett) to me.

I remember it always being an easy one to whip up using lemons from the lemon tree. The original recipe used a Marie biscuit and butter base with a lemon curd set on top, then frozen for storage. The meringue was normally prepped then dried out while the lemon pie defrosted (…that was when I loved eating it as a kid, 'while it was defrosting').

I've since altered the recipe to suit Taxi Kitchen by torching the meringue directly on the frozen curd then serving so you get the beautifully toasted flavour of the meringue with the super cold sweet and sour curd (still frozen though, just like Nans!).

Frozen Lemon Meringue Pie

Ingredients

80g of sugar
80g egg white
1.5g lemon peel
150g lemon juice
247.5g eggs lightly beaten at room temp
225g sugar
150g butter
6g gelatin
75g water
80g bergamot puree
80g sugar
4g agar
6 x freeze dried raspberries
6 borage flowers

Method

Whisk sugar, egg white and lemon peel together over a bain marie until 65C then transfer to a kitchen aid and whisk, slowly increase the speed as it cools until its silkily and shiny.
With a thermometer, bring lemon juice, eggs, and sugar together in a pot on high heat whisking. Once 74C is achieved whisk in the butter and bloomed leaves. Strain and set. Once set, blitz, freeze and portion.
Whisk water, bergamot puree, sugar and agar and bring to boil. Boil for 2 min and set on a tray. Blitz in blender to a smooth puree.

Garnish

Crush raspberries to a powder ; pick borage flowers.

Assemble dish

Place frozen lemon curd on plate and palate knife the meringue all over the curd. Blow torch the meringue. Dot the bergamot gel around and sprinkle with raspberry powder and flower.

Short Crust (for those who can't live without it!)

Ingredients

72 g flour
44g almond flour
36g icing sugar
2g salt
44g butter small cubes
30g butter, melted but cool
Preheat oven 160c

Method

In a robot coupe, combine the flour, sugar and salt, and mix. Stop, add the cubed butter, and mix until fully incorporated.
Spread the mixture out on the prepared sheet pan and bake until golden brow for 15-20mins.
Let it cool then grind to fine powder with robot coupe.
Pour in the melted butter and make a mixture to solid mass.
Spread it out to 0.5cm thick. Reserve in the refrigerator until hardened.
Cut desired shape then bake for 17-20min.

Bio
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Mireille Kilgour

Mireille Kilgour has been an entrepreneur for 35 years in the hospitality sector. French born, she has been an accomplished business owner and operator for a number of Sydney venues. Leading the industry with high profile institutions such as Lamrock Café Bondi, she has endless passion for the industry, and now has the pleasure of supporting restaurants to fill their tables with the new Good Food Gift Card program.