Pastéis de Nata (Portuguese Custard Tarts)
Custard tarts with blistered tops — the home version that actually works.
Pastéis de nata are Portuguese custard tarts: laminated pastry cases filled with a thin egg custard and baked hot enough to blister the top. The oven temperature is what separates them from an ordinary custard tart — the surface has to scorch before the custard sets solid. Everything else about them is simple.
Ingredients
- 1 roll puff pastry
- 250ml milk
- 200ml cream
- 150g sugar
- 4 egg yolks
- 25g flour
- 1 cinnamon stick, lemon peel
Method
- 1
Roll the pastry into a log, cut discs and press into a muffin tin.
- 2
Cook flour with a little cold milk into a paste; heat the rest with cream, cinnamon and lemon peel.
- 3
Whisk hot milk into the paste, then into the yolks and sugar.
- 4
Fill each case two-thirds full.
- 5
Bake at the hottest your oven allows (250C) for 12–14 minutes until spotted black.
Twelve tarts for the price of three in a Lisbon pastelaria.
The tasca lunch they finish
- Arroz de Tomate — Tomato rice — the everyday lunch these follow.
Tasca Days
Six Portuguese recipes are free here; the guide holds fourteen, set in the regional and practical context that the recipe pages deliberately leave out.
Fourteen Portuguese recipes, and the language, law and labels of the Portuguese table.
- Fourteen Portuguese recipes with metric and US measures
- A regional compass that says plainly which dishes have documented origins and which do not
- The Portuguese words you need on a menu and in a market
- Dining and consumer guidance, including couvert
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