“Somebody Feed Phil” These “Pasteis de Nata!”

This week’s cooking challenge started with the TV series “Somebody Feed Phil” – because he went to Lisbon Portugal and devoured these “pasteis de nada!”

They are traditional Egg Custard Tarts, made famous in the town of Sintra just outside Lisbon, where my wife Alex and I are going to visit for the first time ever in two weeks….and that’s why for week #50 in my “52 In 22 Cooking Challenge”, I’m making TWO different Portuguese Tarts that are NOT “pasteis de nada!”

Here’s A “Queijadas de Leite!”

I want to try a “pasties de nada” for the first time in its place of origin. Instead, I am making two different tarts: the first one is a Portuguese Milk Tart. These sweet treats are made with a few simple ingredients, eggs, milk, butter, flour and sugar, and they bake up into creamy little tarts that practically melt in your mouth. 

And Here’s A “Queijadas de Cenoura!”

My second Portuguese Tart will be a “carrot cheesecake tart” – with a recipe that has no cheese!

Where did I get the inspiration of these two unique recipes? Here!

This terrific book, lent to us by our good friend and Cookbook Author Barbara Passino, had a variation on the “milk tart” called a “Queijadas de cenoura” – Carrot “cheese” cakes!

Both were delicious and easy to make – so let’s get busy making a “Carrot Cheesecake Tart!”

This recipe uses creamy carrot instead of cheese, but while the recipe in the book had no cheese, I decided to use a bit of cream cheese anyway – because why not?

Here are the ingredients:

1-1/2 lb peeled carrots

5 tbl softened butter

1-1/4 cup superfine sugar

4 eggs

3/4 cup flour

pinch of salt

zest of one lemon

zest of one liime

cream cheese if you are so inclined

Before you begin, preheat your oven to 430 degrees

Grease a nonstick muffin tin with butter – and now, let’s make our tarts!

Chop one pound carrots and coarsely grate the rest, then get a pot of water boiling.

Boil the chopped carrots until soft…then drain and blend them with a hand mixer and set aside.

In a large bowl, combine the sugar and butter until smooth, then add your blended carrots…

Next, add the eggs one at a time and mix smoothly – this is where I added 3 tablespoons of creamy cream cheese because I wanted it to have a bit of that silky flavor…

Next, gently fold in the flour, salt and the grated carrots until you have a nice mix…

Gently add the lemon and orange zest, combine your mix and it will look like this…

The last step is to put the mix in your muffin tins until about 3/4 full and get ready to bake them for 25 minutes!

I only made a few of these for the purpose of the “52 In 22” cooking challenge and also added my Milk Tarts to the pan as well…let’s make those next!

Yes, I found this recipe for a traditional Portuguese Milk Tart, so I am making both!

Here are your ingredients:

2 cups sugar

1 cup flour

4 beaten eggs

1/2 cup melted butter

3 cups of whole milk

This recipe is even easier than the carrot tarts…in a large bowl combine sugar and flour.

Whisk in beaten eggs, then add melted butter, continuing to whisk, it will become a nice creamy batter…

Next, add your milk and continue to whisk until its silky smooth…

Pour the mixture into a greased muffin tin, filling each cup to a little more than half full…in hindsight I would have done them a bit more full…

Here they are before going into the oven, and here they are coming out 25 minutes later!

Remove the tarts from muffin tin while hot by running a knife around the sides and lifting them out – mine came right out with no problem whatsoever…the recipe says you should sprinkle the milk tarts with cinnamon sugar, but I didn’t do it – they came out perfectly without that!

So which did I like best?

Well, the carrot cheesecake was delicious, with a creaminess from the cream cheese I think really helped – but the milk tarts were creamy and delicious as well – not too sweet – and a nice texture more firm than custard…

I’m looking forward to trying a variety of tarts when we are in Lison, but for a nice snack to have out with coffee, these will do nicely!

As I said, this book was lent to us by our friend Barbara – and yes, I have cooked from her cookbook many many times:

I made Barbara’s delicious baked eggs with strawberries stuffed inside a homemade chocolate taco – oh yes, “chocolate for breakfast” indeed – check out the recipe here!

As my “52 In 22” cooking challenge nears the end, I’ve had a blast making dishes from a variety of cookbooks all year, including one I was involved with!

I produced a PBS show called “Cooking Under Fire”, and this incredible “Pulled Pork Pasta With Almond Cream Sauce” dish was included!

You can see how this all came together by clicking on my story here:

I also had quite the cooking adventure when I made a birthday cake for my wife Alex:

There’s a reason I titled the cake “Pisa” – click on my story to see the recipe for this wildly left-leaning cake!

Oh, and if you want to see what Phil ate in Lisbon, check out his show on Netflix – we are actually confirmed to do SIX different food adventures he profiled in his show – and here’s a look at the series, and one city we already ate at with him!

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