Mirabelle plums

Nice to see, delicious to eat… you will find a lot of mirabelle plums in lorraine. The mirabelle plum tree is a little tree with knoted branches who belongs completly to the lorraine landscape.

We don’t know much about the origins of mirabelle plums. The only thing we know, is that Lorraine is worldwide the region with the greatest density of mirabelle plum trees. Mirabelle brandy exhal all the savour and the flavour of the fruit.

In Lorraine mirabelle plums profit from a controlled label of origin. This label can only be used in a specific geographical zone of production.

To glorify this fruit, the Mirabelle Festival from METZ was created. The top of the festival is at the end of august with the election of the queen of queens, a procession of floral floats, fireworks…

Ingredients :    450g schortcrust pastry    300g « crème pâtissière »      50g floked almonds    600g mirabelle plums in syrup      50g butter    2 tbsp mirabelle brandy    1 egg yolk

Recipe

Line a tart pan with the pastry (reserve 100g for decoration)
Mix the « crème patissière » and the almonds
Drain off the mirabelle plums
Let the butter melt in a pan, add the fruits, put mirabelle brandy over all and flame.
Fill the pastry with créme pâtissière and with mirabelle plums.
Cut reserved pastry into strips; place over the fruits in a lattice design and brush it with egg yolk.
Bake in a 220°C preheated oven for about 35 minutes