Lindy and her home-made lemon curd made with lemons from her garden

Lindy and her home-made lemon curd made with lemons from her garden. | Majorca, Mallorca. At Home Together

Vicki McLeodPalma28/03/2020 13:08
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I am happy and proud to announce that Majorca is pulling together through this awful period, how do I know? Because the streets are extremely quiet and everyone is at home and, it would seem, online: we are seeing an incredible sharing of home grown knowledge and experience through social media. Facebook, something which we have often been told to reduce our time on, is now a platform where we can find a vital support, especially for individuals living on their own, people who might be suffering from anxiety (I would say that is probably most of us right now) and others who need structure and things to look forward to throughout their day. I, supported by the Majorca Daily Bulletin, have responded to this need by founding a Facebook group called Majorca Mallorca, At Home Together (https://www.facebook.com/groups/MajorcaMallorca/ ) where many talented chefs, musicians, gardeners, magicians, entertainers, teachers, and other professionals and enthusiasts are sharing their knowledge online through live and recorded tutorials. Thursday and Friday this week saw us making sourdough bread, naan bread, curry, chicken, planting out seeds, learning how to sew masks, participate in boxing, yoga, pilates, and cardio, enjoy live music and quizzes and most importantly keep each other company, sane and entertained during self isolation.

Looking at the group’s topics, by far the most popular thing we are doing at the moment is cooking and baking. We shouldn’t really be too surprised because psychologists say that we humans find the act of baking to be comforting, although I guess that depends on how good you are at the actual cooking! Certainly when we are anxious we do look for something to do and the At Home Together group has given people an outlet to share, and a way to add some structure to their day to day routine.

It is also a great activity to do with children who are perhaps suffering even more than adults currently as they are prevented from leaving their houses at all and have to stay at home. In our family we baked several different and quite challenging recipes last weekend which kept our teenager’s mind off the fact she was missing out on going to the stables to muck out horses and be with her friends in the fresh air. We even attempted crumpets which weren’t a complete disaster. A by-product of this activity was actually having something to show for it at the end which was really satisfying, “Look, today we made THIS!” we announced proudly to my mum on our nightly dinner table video call. Being an accomplished cook herself it felt great to show her what we had been doing that day.

One of the group members and contributors, Lindy Tittle, shared her recipe for lemon curd which was quick, easy and delicious!

INGREDIENTS

  • 4 lemons
  • 200g sugar
  • 100g butter in chunks
  • 4 eggs

You will also need a zester and a juicer and a bowl over a saucepan of water.

METHOD

Zest the lemons, then juice them.

Heat the water in the pan and put the bowl over the pan, the bowl must not touch the pan. Add the lemon juice into the bowl, followed by the zest, sugar and butter. Stir and allow butter to melt.

Beat three whole eggs and one more yolk. Add eggs to lemon and sugar and butter mixture and stir gently until it cooks, about 12 minutes.

Pour the cooled mixture into sterilised jars.

Try not to eat it all at once!

We made some in our house and the jar was empty within the day, so we will have to make sure that we are getting involved in many more of the workout videos to burn off all those extra calories. So,if you aren’t quite ready to bake a cake yet, then this might be a good start, you can at least spread it on toast, or if you are feeling really grungy, just eat it with a spoon, straight out the jar, in your pyjamas whilst binging on a Netflix series. No one is judging you, all bets are off! Don’t forget, stressed spelled backwards is desserts…