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Portuguese Apple Pie
Line the inside of a moderate-sized pie-dish with good crust. Put into it half a dozen good baking apples, which have been pared, cored, and cut into thin slices. Sprinkle a little sugar and two or three inches of thin lemon-rind cut into narrow strips over them. Spread a small portion of apricot jam upon them, and cover the whole with a cold custard made with half a pint of milk and six well-beaten eggs. The custard should be sweetened, and may be flavoured with lemon, almond, or any other flavouring. Bake in a moderate oven. Time to bake, half an hour. If the apples are not of a kind to fall they should be cooked beforehand.
An open tart rather than a covered pie: shortcrust, sliced apples, a smear of apricot jam and a very rich custard poured over cold. A few of the quantities and instructions need translating before it will work in a modern oven.
- The hinge: cook the apples firstThe recipe itself flags this at the end, and it is the point that decides whether the dish succeeds. Half an hour is nowhere near long enough to soften raw slices under a set custard, and most supermarket apples (Braeburn, Gala, Granny Smith) hold their shape rather than "falling" as a Bramley does. Stew or roast them to tenderness and let them cool before they go into the case.
- Half a pint of milkAn imperial half-pint is 10 fl oz, about 1¼ US cups. With six whole eggs that is an extremely rich mixture — closer to a flan or a Portuguese pastel de nata filling than to a pouring custard, and it will set firm.
- "Cold custard"This most likely means the uncooked sweetened egg-and-milk mixture rather than a cooked and chilled one. Whisk it, strain out the chalazae for a smooth set, and pour it over the fruit just before the dish goes in the oven so it does not soak the pastry.
- A moderate oven350°F / 175°C. For a custard this eggy, 325°F / 160°C is safer against curdling, though it will need longer than the stated half hour. The filling is done when the centre still has a slight wobble; carry-over heat finishes it.
- Blind-bake the caseIn a modern oven the wet filling will otherwise leave the base pale and soft: line and blind-bake the crust for about 15 minutes, then a few minutes uncovered.
- Lemon-rind strips"Two or three inches of thin lemon-rind" appears to mean a strip of peel two or three inches long, cut into narrow shreds — a modest amount, perhaps the zest of half a lemon at most. Take only the yellow; the white pith is bitter.
- Almond flavouringPeriod recipes often meant ratafia or bitter-almond essence. Modern almond extract is potent, so use no more than a scant quarter-teaspoon for this quantity of custard.
- YieldA "moderate-sized pie-dish" is about 8–9 inches. Six apples plus this custard fills that generously and serves six to eight.
Cassell's, like other late-Victorian household dictionaries, hung national names on dishes fairly loosely, and "Portuguese" here may point at the custard rather than at any documented Portuguese original — an egg-heavy baked custard set in a pastry case belongs to the same family as the pastel de nata, though this one is made with whole eggs. The apricot jam spread under the custard does something like the job of the jam layer in a Bakewell: sealing the fruit and adding a little acidity. The instruction to precook apples "not of a kind to fall" suggests cooks were expected to know which varieties collapsed to a purée in the oven and which held their shape — a distinction still worth making at the greengrocer.