Quiche Lorraine

Okay, I confess – I was seriously slack on the Father’s Day front this year. Despite repeated searches, I couldn’t find the card I bought for my girls to give their Dad anywhere… A final early morning search on Sunday had me suddenly remember that the one I was going to buy wasn’t that nice so I left it and said we’d get another, oops. He did get a lie-in (he’s glued to “The Hunger Games” at the moment) while I addressed the failings of our dishwasher (it’s thinking hard about going on the blink, there was quite a lot of washing up to be done as a result). So I kinda needed to make it up to him. He asked me last week for a quiche, but I never got round to it, so after he’d kindly tidied the older girl’s room, hoovered it and hoovered the car, as well as getting the girls dinner ready (what can I say, he’s great!), I sent him out for a run (the older, 5 yr old girl, kept telling me what a meanie I was, but he wanted to go!) and set to with the pastry, in preparation for a quiche. I did made a sort of a quiche (with asparagus) for some vegetarian friends once, but it was a really long time ago – 6 or 7 years, and was only so-so, so while the pastry was resting I set to, looking for a recipe.

I didn’t do so well, though. Delia Smith let me down – her recipe is one of her “cheat” ones, and of course I had none of the cheat stuff available. So I went to that other great foodie recipe site, BBC Food. However, that search was brilliant either, the Hairy Biker’s recipe was okay, but the quantities were too big, and I didn’t really have time to check out the other recipes, as I was also trying to coax the 3 yr old that yes, she did want to eat her potatoes and NO! She did not need me to feed her the beans…

Crust "missing in action"!

Anyhow, it turned out pretty good in the end, I made one error – I didn’t leave enough pastry at the edge of the pastry case when lining it into the tin (to allow for shrinkage, when the pastry cooks). I copped on pretty quickly and remedied the situation, but when I was pouring in the filling some did breach the dam, as you can see from the photo (I chose this photo on purpose, to show the lack of crust in one point). However, I cooked it for long enough and I managed to avoid the dreaded “soggy bottom”. It was hard to know how long to cook it for, opinions were divided between Delia and the Bikers, but in the end it was closer to 30 mins – I’d say, check it at 25mins and take it from there.

So, here’s the recipe…

Pastry quantities – 2oz flour, 1oz each of lard and butter (rock hard), make the pastry as per original blog post; Tarty Lady

For the filling:

·         100g streaky bacon, chopped up and fried off (or lardon pieces, if you have them)

·         2 eggs, beaten

·         200 ml crème fraiche

·         3 tablespoons of strong, vintage cheddar, grated (I think gruyere would be lovely too, probably more authentic)

·         1 tablespoon parmesan cheese

·         Pre-heat the oven to 180°C and place a baking tray in the oven

1.       After the pastry has rested in the fridge for 30 minutes, roll out nice and thinly and fit into the bottom of a lightly greased 8 inch, loose-bottomed tart / flan tin, making sure to prick the pastry all over with a fork and fitting it in nicely to the edges of the tin and trim the excess – make sure to leave a good quarter of an inch or more around the top edge, to allow for shrinkage. Brush with a little of the beaten egg and then bake blind for 20 minutes, checking half way to ensure the pastry isn’t rising – if it is (and mine was, a little) prick some more with the fork and push it back down with your fingers

2.       Beat the eggs, and gently fold in the crème fraiche gently – you don’t want to lose the air, then season with salt and pepper

3.       Once the pastry case has baked, sprinkle the bacon pieces on the bottom, followed by the grated cheddar, then the egg mix. Finally sprinkle the parmesan on top, and bake for about 25-30 minutes, til golden and wobbly on top with the setting nicely set (mine took closer to 30 mins)

Serve with a good salad – it being late on Sunday evening, the pickings in my fridge were pretty slim, comprising of half an elderly cucumber (over a week old, as it certainly pre-dates our trip to the in-laws in Bristol last weekend… It repeats on me, so I don’t eat it very often), an out-of-date packet of tomatoes and 2 wilted scallions. I chopped them all up; de-seeding the cucumber first as apparently this stops the issue with it repeating, seasoned with lots of pepper and a little salt and made a quick dressing (1 part oil – the rapeseed oil again, still have nothing else in!) to 2 parts vinegar (just regular white wine vinegar – nothing fancy) and a good dash of Colman’s mustard powder. It was a super supper!

Posting this on our Facebook page last night as I cooked, I was asked to post the recipe, so here goes. You probably won't hear from me now again for a month!

PS – the trick with de-seeding the cucumber worked.

Sarah xx