Quiche

Quiche

I love this recipe! It can be made out any type of vegetables (mushrooms, asparagus, spinach, tomatoes, even corn, sky is not the limit it goes beyond).

This is a very flexible non complicated dish. One of the best parts of doing this recipe is the home-made crust, is so flaky and crunchy.

Another good part is the selection of cheeses, need I to say more?

This recipe yields 4 to 6 people depending on the slicing.

Ingredients:

For the Crust:

1 cup of all purpose flour

½ tsp salt

¼ cup of olive oil

¼ cup of ice water

For the quiche:

100g unsalted butter, chopped

4 eggs

1 ½ cups of crème fraiche (heavy cream, half and half, sour cream or whole milk, either will work)

Salt and black pepper to taste

½ tsp. of nutmeg powdered

2 leeks (thinly sliced)

2 onions (thinly sliced)

100g. mushroom (thinly chopped)

1/4 cup thyme leaves

150g Comté cheese (coarsely grated)

Watercress, to serve

Directions for the pie crust:

1. Mix flour and salt (dry ingredients) in a bowl. Next in another bowl mix oil and water (wet ingredients), beat this mixture with a whisk until thickened. Mix dry and wet ingredients until forming homogeneous dough. Keep in the refrigerator until is time to use.

2. Roll the dough into a thin layer and place it in a pie baking sheet (blind-bake). Preheat oven on 350 degrees Celsius and bake crust until light-golden brown. Let it cool before adding the filling.

3. Note: "blind-bake" (sometimes called pre-baking) is the process of baking a pie crust or other pastry without the filling. Blind baking a pie crust is necessary when it will be filled with an unbaked filling (such as with pudding or cream pies), in which case the crust must be fully baked"- wikipedia

Directions for the filling:

1. Meanwhile, melt butter in a medium non-stick frypan over medium-low heat. Add mushroom, leek, onion and 1 tsp salt flakes. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 30 minutes or until very soft and lightly caramelised. Stir in thyme leaves and season with pepper. Set aside to cool to room temperature.

2. Place mushroom, leek and onion mixture in a bowl with Comté, eggs and crème fraiche, and season. Mix to combine, then pour over pastry base. Bake for 35-40 minutes until set all over, on 350 degrees Celsius. Cool to room temperature. Scatter with watercress and freshly ground black pepper to serve.

Tips:

1. It can be served for breakfast thinly sliced or with a green salad for light lunch or dinner.

2. When baking the quiche if you notice that the top is brown, it probably is time to take it out of the oven, even if 35 minutes has not elapse yet. The thing with the quiche is that it will continue cooking a little bit after is out of the oven.

3. When pairing taste profiles, indulge in the creamier cheeses when using spinach you wont regret it!

4. For the sake of CHEESE. Different cheeses can be paired together to form a cheese-madness quiche.

5. Some other French cheeses options to consider are: Brie, French Munster, or even Camembert it all depends on the taste profile you want to achieve.

Bon Appetit!