Quiche, Quickly!

Quickly made, but not quickly done: Quiche Lorraine.

You'll see what I mean by this apparent contradiction when you read the recipe.

I had been wanting to make a quiche in a long time; my last one was at least 5 or 6 years ago, and I threw out my old baking form some time after moving to this place in 2003 and never bought a new one. Last week, then, my mum kindly gave me one of hers (still brand new and unused, in its original packing), and so on Saturday, I made Quiche Lorraine for RJ and my dinner.

You need for the crust:

200 g flour

100 g soft butter or margarine (I used the latter)

1 egg

a pinch of salt

For the filling:

around 200 g of ham or bacon (again, I used the latter, and the laziest option at that,  readily diced)

150 g Emmental cheese (lazy again - I bought it already grated)

3 eggs

200 g cream

pepper, salt, nutmeg

(You can find a very useful converting tool for weights, measures and temperatures here)

Put the flour in a bowl and add the margarine or butter in bits. Then add the one egg and pinch of salt. For the first bit, it is best to use a kneading mixer, like the one in the picture above, until the mixture is crumbly like this:

From there, using your hands works best. Work the dough into a nice, homogenous buttery (or margariney) ball like the one below, and put it in the fridge for at least 30 minutes (see what I mean? Although it is quickly made, it is not quickly done, because the dough needs to rest, you can not use it instantly upon making it).

Grease your baking form.

When the dough has rested in the fridge long enough, work it into the form. You will need a bit more than half of it for the bottom, and a bit less than half of it for the rim.

Now comes the mysterious bit; I found this instruction in the recipe and have no idea why it is necessary, but I did it anyway: take a fork and make tiny holes into the bottom, like this:

Put half of the bacon or ham bits on the bottom.

Add half of the cheese, and repeat until you have used up all the bacon/ham and cheese.

Mix the three eggs and the cream, spice with salt, pepper and nutmeg (I use fresh nutmeg, as you can see). Caution: go easy on the salt, the ham/bacon will be salty already.

Pour the mixture over the quiche and put into the oven at 175 Celsius for about 45 minutes - but keep checking after 30 minutes.

The Quiche is ready when it looks like this:

We had salad with it, and enjoyed our dinner very much!

And the nice thing about quiches (just as with pizzas) is that you can use just about anything you find in your kitchen and larder for the filling; you can make it a vegetable one, for instance, by using brokkoli and sundried tomato bits, or green asparagus, or whatever you prefer.