![]() When I started my quest to re-create this custardy treat, I wanted to make it as easy for the home cook as possible. (Macanese tarts look very similar to pastel de nata but are usually less sweet, more eggy, and often the crust is made with lard.) Portuguese colonists brought pastel de nata to Macau, and over the years it has evolved into its own particular tart influenced by the British custard tarts that were brought over to Hong Kong. But just to be clear, these aren’t the same Portuguese tarts you’d find in an Chinese bakery. Its creamy sweet custard is perfumed with cinnamon, vanilla, or lemon, baked in a shatteringly crisp pastry shell, and eaten by the dozen all over the world. One of the most beloved of the holy yolk-based Portuguese desserts (and there are many) is the pastel de nata. So they did what any sensible, waste-fearing people would do, they made desserts. In one chapter, Anna Ling Kaye traces their history (buy it! read it!), which begins with the 16th century Portuguese nuns who used egg whites to “starch” their habits and had, as you would imagine, a growing surplus of egg yolks. When I was tracing the origins of one of our favorite dim sum desserts-Portuguese egg tarts-I read Rachel Khong’s fascinating All About Eggs, which came out earlier this year. It wasn’t quite as good as the last one I had at the famed Tai Cheong bakery in Hong Kong, but holding the egg tart in my hand-one that I had made from start to finish-felt pretty darn empowering.Sometimes my recipe research leads to nuns. I bit into the crisp, tender pastry and savored the smooth custard. ![]() My first try turned out terribly I had overworked the dough and it was tough and brittle. “You can just feel really prideful of yourself and your culture too.” That afternoon I thought about Cho’s words as I followed Wong’s egg tart recipe. “When you make yourself, you lay a little claim to it,” Cho says. Setting my dinner table full of the foods I grew up eating-and sharing this experience with my husband-filled my chest with pride. Cooking through Irene Kuo’s The Key to Chinese Cooking, Cecilia Chiang’s The Seventh Daughter, and Grace Young’s The Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen felt like reconnecting with my culture. I immersed myself in Chinese food blogs and cookbooks. ![]() But last year’s shooting in Atlanta and the recent rise in anti-Asian hate crimes jolted me awake. I never learned to make turnip cake or mooncakes from scratch. In my most vulnerable moments, I thought that disregarding my heritage seemed like a fair price to pay if it meant I’d be unequivocally accepted by my peers. After these negative experiences in high school and early adulthood, I couldn’t help but feel that being Chinese was more a burden than a joy. I was emotionally exhausted by the rejection that often came when I shared my food and culture with others. I want to steam a whole fish, dive into a bowl of red-cooked chestnuts, and fill my apartment with the warm, spiced aroma of flavor-potted tofu.įor a long time I felt pressured to assimilate and shied away from my Chinese heritage. ![]() Lately, I’ve been yearning to re-create the flavors of my childhood in my own kitchen. It wasn’t just about embracing a new challenge, though. It seemed silly that I was confident in my ability to make a fancy French cake like a marjolaine or opera but couldn’t imagine baking something as essential to my culture as the egg tart is.
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