Quiche Lorraine

I cheat and use store-bought shortcrust pastry with my quiches. If you have the time to wait for the dough to rest, and don’t mind clearing up the mess (which I always seem to make tons of whenever making pastry) go right ahead.

Quiche Lorraine reminds me of growing up in the suburbs in Sydney and having a slice of quiche with a salad on the side. You can’t really not like it – salty bacon and sweet sauteed onions enveloped in a warm eggy pillow – with pastry. It’s pretty easy, too – just make sure you blind bake your base properly, or it will end up soggy instead of crispy and short, giving you good contrasting textures with each bite.

Ingredients

1. 1 -2 sheets ready made shortcrust pastry
2. 1 large onion, diced
3. 6 rashers (or more if you want) bacon, diced
4. 200ml heavy cream
5. 3 eggs
6. 1 cup grated gruyere or cheddar cheese
7. salt and pepper to taste

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200C/390F
2. Line the base and sides of a loose-bottomed tart tin with the pastry
3. Prick the base, line with baking paper and add pie weights/rice/beans before blind baking in the oven for 15 minutes
4. Remove the baking paper and pie weights and put back in the oven for an additional 5-10 minutes until cooked through and lightly browned
5. While the base is baking, make your filling
6. Sautee the bacon on medium-high heat until brown and crispy and remove from frying pan to cool
7. Reduce the heat to low and cook onions until soft and translucent
8. Mix cream, eggs, cheese together in a jug.
9. Season with salt and pepper – remember not to oversalt as the bacon and cheese will provide additional seasoning
10. Once the base is ready, sprinkle your bacon and onion on the base, and pour in the eggy/cheese mix over
11. Reduce the oven temperature to 160C/320F and bake quiche for 30 minutes or the middle is just wobbly (it will continue to cook a little more once out of the oven)
12. Remove from oven, let sit for 5 minutes before removing quiche from the tin
13. Enjoy hot or cold as leftovers the next day 😉

 

 

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Crustless quiche

I have been hankering for a quiche for a while now.  I had a long day at work and thinking that I had the ingredients at home to make one, avoided the mad after work crush in the supermarket and headed straight home.  To my dismay I found that I had no pastry in the freezer.  Quelle horror !

So I thought I’d make a crustless quiche and see how that turned out.

It’s basically a fritatta except with a lot more cream.  And you know what, although it’s not a quiche, it’s just as delicious and faster to make because you don’t have to take the time to blind bake the base.

So here’s the recipe.  I used what I had in the fridge but you can pretty much add any mix you like in the quiche. Classic combinations are ham and onion, bacon and spinach.

Ingredients:

1. 3 eggs
2. 1 cup cream
3. 1 cup grated cheese
4. 1 small onion, sliced
5. 100g sliced ham
6. small head of broccoli cut into small florets
7. 100g asparagus – sliced
8. salt and pepper to taste

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180C
2. Sweat the onions over low heat till soft
3. Add ham and the base slices of the asparagus and fry for a few minutes till soft
4. Add the asparagus tips and the broccoli to just coat with oil and remove from heat.  You don’t want to overcook these or they will go soggy and flavourless as they continue to cook in the egg/cream mix
5. Sprinkle over base of a pie
6. Whisk eggs and cream together and season.  Add the grated cheese and pour mixture over the ham/vegetable mix
7. Pop into the oven for 30-40 mins – the middle should juuust wobble.  It will continue to cook once out of the oven
8. Take out and let cook for ten minutes before you serve

Pavlova

pavlova with fresh cream and berries

Pavlova is another one of those desserts whose origin seems locked in battle between Australia and New Zealand.  I don’t care who “invented” it, I’m just grateful for it, no matter where it comes from.

It’s a dessert which seems to invoke fear in people trying to make it, but I have made it enough times to know that with some basic rules, it’s a simple and impressively sweet treat to make.  You end up with this perfect blend of crisp outer shell with marshmallowy centre, topped with whipped cream and fresh fruit.

The basic rules:

1. Use a clean bowl and beater – any oil, egg yolk, water, soap etc will limit the volume that you will get from your egg whites
2. If you’re in humid weather, beat your egg whites with the airconditioner on.  Humidity also minimises volume
3. I make my pavlova a touch less sweet, but you need at least 50g of sugar per egg white to keep the stiffness in the meringue mix
4. Make sure you add the sugar to the egg whites gradually, making sure you beat well until the sugar is dissolved (taste some of the mix, if it’s gritty, you need to beat it more)
5. When the cooking is done, let the pavlova cool in the oven with the oven door closed or at the most open only a crack or your pavlova will collapse

OK that’s a few more than I thought, but really, it’s not that difficult, honest !

Ingredients (to feed 6 people or 4 greedy ones)

• 4 egg whites at room temperature
• Pinch of salt
• 200g castor sugar
• splodge of vanilla
• 2 teaspoons cornflour
• 1 teaspoon white vinegar
• Whipped cream and fruit to top

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180C
2. Beat egg whites with salt until satiny peaks form
3. Add castor sugar in small batches, beating well between each so that the sugar has dissolved
4. fold in the vanilla, cornflour and vinegar
5. Pile on to a tray lined with baking paper (you can draw a 15cm circle on the underneath of the baking paper to help), flatten the top a little (so you can add the topping)
6. Put into oven and immediately turn the temperature down to 150C and bake for 30 minutes
7. Reduce the temperature to 120C and bake for another hour
8. Turn off oven at the end and let the pavlova cool in the oven
9. Top with fresh whipped cream and fresh fruit