Grey day today. Just two days after buying the digital SLR camera of my dreams, I watched it crash to the ground, snapping the rim of the beautiful, stabilized lens that was going to introduce dewy and faintly pornographic variation in depth of field to my photographs. Nothing left to do but thank heaven for equipment insurance and listen woefully to La Reba (”On my owwwwwwn…..”) until the service centre reunites me with my baby.

For now, a recipe I came up with just before Christmas, but am only now getting around to writing down. Three months on, the adrenaline and self-doubt have subsided, and I can finally pat myself on the back for catering a cocktail party for 300, just one month out of cooking school. These Jeweled Tarlets, as I call them, were one of two festive desserts for a holiday party: little pâte sucrée cases filled with an orange-nutmeg pastry cream and topped with pomegranate seeds.

There is something deeply, primordially satisfying about any large collection of things or beings arranged precisely and moving in unison. Choreographers and bandmasters know it, and Kim père et fils have sustained their Pyongyang dynasty on it. Catering–the silver trays of tiny, edible soldiers in perfect formation–appeals to my inner fascist: legions of crostini and mini-quiches sent to their deaths by my tuxedoed lieutenant generals while I oversee the carnage from my kitchen/war-room.

But I’m no diplomat, and that’s why, at least for now, I’m taking a break from catering. I have met caterers with no official culinary training, whose passion for people and obvious warmth produces simpler food that goes farther to delight and nourish. A restaurant cook can be as crusty as he likes, hidden away in that kitchen, but a caterer has to provide an awful lot of showmanship and handholding both in the weeks leading up to and on the night of the event.

I love pomegranates, and am always sad when their short season is over. While they are in stores, I scatter their seeds (properly known as arils) over warm chocolate cake, toss them with shredded radicchio, crisped pancetta and a shallot vinaigrette for a very magenta salad, or eat them with honey as a surely ancient dessert that brings to mind (my mind, at least) the Song of Solomon. I keep a bottle of pomegranate molasses in my kitchen all year round, where it makes a tangy sauce (with veal demi-glace) for skin-on chicken or duck, or sharpens dark ale in a braising liquid for short ribs. No other fruit is so versatile or so beautiful; the jeweled trees in the legend of Aladdin must have dripped with the faceted, ruby-red seeds of the pomegranate.

When pomegranate time rolls around again, I will make a full-sized tart, heaped high with the arils. Of course, if you want to torture yourself, you can make 1 1/2-inch tartlet shells in tiny molds, or visit Dufour Pastry Kitchens in the Bronx (as I did) to lug back several hundred of them. (Tip: if you are ever suffering from hot hors d’oeuvre block, consult Dufour’s wonderful panoply of them for inspiration.)

Jeweled Orange-Nutmeg Custard Tart–Makes one 9-inch tart

INGREDIENTS

For the crust:
Store-bought frozen shortcrust pastry, thawed
or
Frozen pie shell, thawed
or
1 recipe pâte sucrée (from Epicurious)

For the pastry cream:
2 1/2 cups milk
vanilla bean, split lengthwise
6 large egg yolks
1/2 cup granulated white sugar
6 tbs all-purpose flour
6 tbs cornstarch
zest of two oranges
1/2 tsp nutmeg

For the topping:
Seeds of two pomegranates

METHOD

For the crust:
If using store-bought pastry shell, follow directions on package to cook through.

If using store-bought pastry dough or Epicurious’ pâte sucrée recipe, preheat your oven to 400F and butter and flour a tart pan. Lightly flour a clean surface and roll pastry until about 1/4-inch thick and wide enough to cover the pan. (Joy of Baking has an excellent tutorial on rolling dough and getting it from the counter into the tart pan.) Line pan with dough, and bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown. Remove from oven and allow to cool.

For the pastry cream:
In a medium-sized bowl, whisk the sugar and egg yolks together. Sift the flour and cornstarch together and then add to the egg mixture, mixing until fully incorporated. Set aside.

Meanwhile, in a saucepan, combine the milk, vanilla, orange zest and nutmeg until boiling. Remove from heat and temper egg mixture with small amount of hot milk, whisking constantly to prevent scrambling the eggs. Slowly combine the rest of the milk with the eggs.

Return egg-milk mixture to pan, and over a low heat, whisk constantly until it has thickened to the consistency of mayonnaise. Remove from heat.

Press through a fine sieve to remove the orange zest and any lumps that may have formed. Refrigerate to cool.

To assemble:
Fill the cooled tart case with the chilled pastry cream, and cover filling with generous handfuls of pomegranate arils. Served chilled.

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