With this recipe, you can master a home-made pie-crust -- which is what makes a quiche special -- and have a fabulous late-morning breakfast. The crust should be started the night before, saving some hungry-time in the kitchen.
Equipment needed:
* Deep fluted metal quiche baking pan with removable bottom
* Ceramic Pie Beads (pie weights - dept stores have these)
* Wide micro grater
* Straight Rolling pin
* Optional pastry dough blender
* Wide Parchment paper
* Large mixing bowl
Pie Crust (for two* bottom crusts):
10T butter, cubed, cold
4T pure lard, cubed, cold
3C flour
1t Salt
1T Sugar
Ice Water (with ice)
*If going through the trouble to make one pie
crust, you might as-well make two. Use for a second
quiche (Because the second only takes a few minutes after you
have gobbled the first. Or, freeze for another day.).
* As an aside, I have used 1/8C vodka and 1/8C water. The vodka wets
the dough, but doesn't cause gluten to form. It evaporates. I need to
practice this more; my thinking is it needs more butter/lard.
Quiche filling (for 1 pie):
7 eggs: divided, 7 whites, 5 yolks*
If a shallow quiche pan, use 5 eggs, 4 yolks.
8-10 oz Parmesan or Romana hard Italian cheese, shredded
4-6 oz Sharp cheddar, shredded
Diced sweet peppers
Diced prebaked ham or chopped crispy bacon
2-3 Diced Roma tomatoes
1T Thyme (dried spice)
2T Tarragon (dried spice)
3T Chives
Pie Crust
Making pie crusts takes some skill and trickery but this recipe will make you an expert. As you will see, you can fumble and make mistakes, but because this is a single-crust recipe, your sins can be hidden with none-the-wiser.
A. Cube 10T butter into small cubes (1cm, 1/4").
B. Cube apx 4T lard into similar cubes.
C. Spread across a plate and put in the freezer for 15 or 20 minutes.
D. Fill a small mixing bowl with cold water and some ice cubes. Place aside. You will need 8 to 10T of cold water, depending on the humidity in your house.
E. In a your largest mixing bowl
Add 3C flour, 1t salt, 1T sugar. Roughly mix.
Working quickly, add cubed butter, cubed lard, tossing while adding.
Chop with pastry blender until butter is pea-sized.
[If no pastry blender, use two butter-knives criss-cross or do as Julia Childs recommends, use your fingers, pinching rapidly until you have flattened little butter pancakes everywhere.]
F. Again working quickly, before the butter softens, sprinkle (or spray) cold water, tossing the flour with fingers. Start with 6T of cold water. Sprinkle-toss-sprinkle-toss. Mix and add water until the flour can be clumped into a loose ball that barely stays together. You want this to be somewhat dry. Admittedly, this is hard to judge. For these photos, I made mine a tad too dry.
G. Divide into 2 roughly-formed balls.
H. Flatten into a thick cake. Look at those beautiful chunks of butter!
I. Wrap in plastic; refrigerate 1 to 2 hrs (or up to overnight).
I can't plan ahead. With my first quiche today, I chilled in the freezer for 5 minutes.
J. Using the false-bottom of the quiche pan as a guide, cut a round circle of parchment paper, so the circle fits loosely inside the pan. This will go on top of the crust, protecting it from the baking beads.
Rolling the crust:
1. Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees F (190C). Come to temperature before rolling the crust.
2. On a sheet of parchment paper, dust with flour.
Place dough on paper and dust the top.
Using a flat rolling pin, roll with firm pressure, from the inside-out.
Roll until wide-enough to cover the quiche pan, plus another 2 or 3" inches for the sides.
Run the crust well-up the sides because it will shrink.
The crust will like be brittle. It will tear. It will not be round.
Don't panic.
3. Fix damage by tearing pieces from the long sides and lay on the short sides, and patching other damage.
4. Lift by parchment paper and flop-over onto the pan... (notice how un-round my pie crust is...sheese!), or roll onto the rolling-pin and unroll onto the pan. The crust may stick to the paper - keep working at it.
This does not have to be perfect.
As you can see, my crust was a disaster and it fell apart. No worries.
5. Patch with extra dough, pressing and molding with fingertips.
If needed, use a drop of water while patching.
Cover your sins as-if-you-know what you are doing...
(Be sure the crust is air-tight, it can't leak egg through the false bottom. Experience teaching.)
A wonderful recovery:
"Proof" (Pre-bake) Pie Shell
Pre-heat the oven to 375F (190C) before these next steps.
6. Place the parchment circle cut earlier on top of the crust.
Pour ceramic pie beads into the pan.
7. With thin 2 inch strips of aluminum foil, protect the top edges by wrapping them with foil. I usually use four strips to go around that top-outside edge. This does not have to be artistic.
8. Bake uncovered for 19 minutes, 54 seconds.
9. Halfway through, remove the foil.
Once proofed, let cool.
Remove parchment paper and beads.
Confirm the crust looks air-tight.
Filling:
While the pie-crust bakes, continue with these steps.
10. For a deep quiche pan,
Separate 7 eggs and their yolks, discarding 2 yolks
(use 5 and 4 if a shallow quiche pan).
11. In a large bowl, whisk the egg whites with a few tablespoons of water, until the whites are foamy.
12. Stir yolks separately in a smaller bowl.
Gently fold the yolks into the whites.
13. Add most, but not all of the cheese to the egg-mixture.
Add spices.
(but hold on the meat and vegetables)
Pour egg mixture into pie-crust.
14. Sprinkle with cubed ham/bacon and chopped peppers, tomatoes.
(These ingredients will settle into the mixture; I like them in layers.)
Sprinkle reserved cheese, for color.
Bake
The pie will rest on the middle rack.
On the lower-rack, place an old cookie sheet to catch overflows and possible leaks.
Wrap the outside edges with thin strips of foil to protect the exposed crusts from burning.
(Some of you have fancy pie-crust protectors; I don't.)
15. Bake uncovered 25 minutes at 375F.
16. Remove the foil.
Set the heat to 350F for another 20 - 30 minutes.
Mixture will firm while baking and should not jiggle.
The crust should pull away from the sides.
An inserted chopstick should pull out clean.
17. Remove from oven and let cool for 15-20 minutes - don't rush this. It will be too hot to handle and you won't succeed at pulling it away from the false-bottom.
18. Gently lift pie, pushing up from the false bottom. The crust should rise out of the pan.
Rest on a cutting board.
The metal false bottom will probably stick. With a cool pie, use a filet or other long, thin knife, running horizontally along the bottom. Surgically separate the plate from the crust. (Remove the plate because slicing dulls the blade and it will groove the plate, making future crusts harder to remove.)
Results:
I like to serve with a tossed green salad, with a light homemade vinaigrette dressing, made sweet for brunch.
Salad Dressing:
In a medium glass mixing bowl:
1T Dijon Mustard
1T Honey
1T Sugar
2T White vinegar
pinch of salt
pepper
garlic powder
dash of dried Tarragon
Whisk together
Drizzle 1T Olive oil (while whisking)
Drizzle 2T Safflower or Grape seed oil, while whisking, adding more to taste.
Second Crust Quiche was made with these ingredients
While baking the first quiche, I prepped these ingredients for the second quiche. These were the ingredients on-hand and it was as delightful as the first:
Arugula, dandelion, and spinach greens. Chopped roughly.
Red onions, bell peppers
Chopped ham
Mushrooms
grated Parmesan and crumbled Mexican Queso Fresco cheeses
Thyme, tarragon, chives
The greens are bulky and you won't be able to layer. Mix all ingredients at the same time before pouring.
My thanks to JanJou Patisserie, Boise, for inspiring me to make quiche. My goal is to be as good as her. And thanks to my friend Mike B., who will always make a crust better than me; I am gaining.
No comments:
Post a Comment