All roads lead to… make meringue

It all began more than six years ago, when I had the great fortune to try out the authentic “pastéis de Belém”, Lisbon’s pastry specialty. I can only describe, like a creamy and sweet little piece of heaven tarts. The original recipe is a well-kept secret. I have mixed feeling about that. On the one hand, it is wonderful visiting a place with something unique in the whole world, I feel that make it special, but on the other hand as soon as you get home, you would find out that you really want the recipe or at least close as possible to do it.

To this day, my mom and I still trying several times with pastry cream modified and adapted, although results were not always good. However we ended eating it. 

After a series of failures, my mother had a brilliant idea.  Due dates back 18^th century and were made by nuns, means the recipe must be simple, my mom concluded. So she purchased a cookbook, it took me by surprise, and -guess what- the book is a guide to Spanish dessert made at monasteries. 

I opened the book, have a glance and realize I knew almost nothing about it. Finally, I found one recipe “Natillas Asturianas”. I think could be work. Further, what could go wrong? I have in my hands the recipe, indicating the steps to be followed to succeed and of course, one big picture should look like. Egg yolks, check. Milk, check. Sugar, check. Lemon, check. Everything is under control.

That is a huge mistake. Long story short, it is not how I thought it would be. I don`t need the secret recipe, because whatever I do, I hardly ever follow recipes, even regular recipes.  I am hopeless.

After this, the only thing left to worry about is deciding, what can we do with egg whites? 

If you answer is meringue, you can read my mind. You may think that’s so simple to do, I assumed that too. Search the internet for information about it, surprisingly for me, a lot of hints and tips. Of course, I already knew some of them like “bowl and utensils must be impeccable clean”. But I didn’t know about “aluminums bowl react with the eggs”. 

As if that were not enough, I really wanted was a big challenge. So I resolved to whip egg whites by hand, you know using only a whisk. I needed to know how much time I spent on this. 

Tomorrow, I tell you the great deed.