Bayonne ham tart with garlic (Tarte au Jambon et à l’Ail)

A great recipe to make for any Bastille Day celebrations you might be having from Pierre Koffmann's fabulous Memories of Gascony, one of my all-time favourite cookbooks.

Tarte au Jambon et à l’Ail

serves 4-6

3 heads of garlic

50 g/2 oz duck fat

75 g/3 oz bayonne ham, thinly sliced

1 tablespoon chopped parsley

200 ml/7 fl oz milk

2 egg yolks

2 slices of white bread, crumbled

freshly ground pepper

250 g/9 oz pâte à tarte (or shortcrust pastry)

Preheat the oven to 200ºC/400ºF/gas 6. Cut three 10 cm/4 in squares of foil.

Place a head of garlic and one-quarter of the fat in the middle of each square and wrap tightly in the foil. Place in a roasting pan and bake in the preheated oven for 20–25 minutes, until soft.

Heat the rest of the fat in a frying pan and quickly fry the ham for about 10 seconds on each side, adding the parsley at the last moment.

To make the custard mixture, mix together the milk, egg yolks and breadcrumbs and season with a little pepper. Place in the fridge until needed.

Roll out the pastry into a circle to fit a 20 cm/8 in flan dish and line the dish with the pastry. Bake blind in the preheated oven for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, unwrap and peel the garlic. Place it in the part-baked flan case together with the ham. Pour in the custard mixture and bake in the hot oven for 25 minutes.

Pierre suggests serving this hot but I think it would be pretty good at room temperature if you wanted to make it ahead.

What to drink: It would be rude not to drink a Gascogne wine with this wouldn't it? A fruity white Côtes de Gascogne I suggest, or a Gascogne rosé. Or , if you fancy a red, you could go for a Gaillac

From Memories of Gascony by Pierre Koffmann, published by Mitchell Beazley, £30 (www.octopusbooks.co.uk)

Key Lime Pie

This was the dessert I raved about at Blackfoot in Exmouth market the other day and which I was thrilled to see was in their consultant chef Allegra McEvedy's terrific new book Big Table, Busy Kitchen. I know we're not supposed to be eating puds in January but make an exception for this one.

Allegra writes: "I conducted some fairly extensive research on this American classic to determine what actually defines a key lime pie, and came to the conclusion that really, it can be anything limey, which in any Yank’s book, we most certainly are. Think of this version as a roughly non-cheesy cheesecake, with a top that’s ballsy with lime zest and lighter than angel farts, anchored down by a ginger nutty base.

Will make 8–10 people very happy

120g digestive biscuits

120g ginger nuts

80g butter, melted

3 eggs, separated

zest and juice of 5 limes (see footnote*)

1 x 400ml tin condensed milk

½ tsp cream of tartar

60g caster sugar

Preheat the oven to 160°C/fan 140ºC/Gas 3 and butter a 20cm springform tin that’s about 7cm deep.

Bust up your biscuits until fairly well ground, either in a food processor or the old-fashioned way (by bashing them in a bag with a rolling pin). Tip into a bowl and stir in the melted butter, then dump into the tin and use the backs of your curled-up fingers to press it down and make sure it’s well compacted. Stick it in the fridge to firm up.

Meanwhile, put the egg yolks in a mixing bowl and whisk with the lime zest, lime juice and condensed milk to just combine.

Either in another bowl using an electric hand whisk, or in an upright mixer, or by hand, whisk the whites until they start to go frothy. Doing it the old fashioned way with muscle is weirdly satisfying and only takes (me) about 4 minutes. Stir the cream of tartar into the sugar, and gradually add to the whites while they’re still moving until you have a bowlful of stiff meringue. Fold the whites into the limey mix in two batches, then pour this on to your base.

Pop the tin on a baking tray, put in the oven straightaway and bake for about 25–35 minutes, until it’s just set – firm around the outside with the faintest of wobbles in the middle.

Leave to cool completely – the pie is best served totally chilled, so once it’s cooled to room temperature, stick it in the fridge for an hour at least. The top will crack a little as it contracts, but that’s never bothered me, or anyone else that’s ever been wowed by it. The longer you leave it, the limier it gets.

* The only imponderable in the recipe. How juicy are your limes? My guess is that Allegra will use good ones so you'd be looking at 2 tbsp juice per lime so 10 tbsp in all. Use untreated limes if you can get hold of them otherwise scrub them before you zest them. FB

What to drink: With an airy pie like this I'd go for a Moscato d'Asti

Big Table, Busy Kitchen by Allegra McEvedy (Quercus) is out now and is available for £15 from www.quercusbooks.co.uk. Photograph © Chris Terry.