Quiche: Real men do eat it

At least, I’ve never seen a good reason for them not to. My introduction to quiche was actually made by a male chef, a friend of my parents who whipped up an absolutely amazing breakfast with fresh vegetables from his and his wife’s garden while my family was staying at his house when I was little. It stuck in my mind as a fluffy, delicious warm pie-like breakfast, and so I decided that quiche was a good idea all around. However, I don’t think I had quiche again until I got to college, where the cafeterias would roll out a version every so often which, while serviceable, just wasn’t the same. So, I decided that to get it right, I’d have to do it myself. Well, not exactly, but that sounds nice.

At any rate, quiche is something I’ve always loved, but always placed in the realm of ‘difficult food’ after childhood memories of the loving, laborious process that I saw went into that first quiche I loved. After trying out a good recipe a few times with a number of variations, I can safely say that it’s a bit more involved than most basic recipes around the kitchen, but hardly beyond the ken of a cook with a bit of experience under their belt.

The other thing I love about quiche is the ability to use a homemade pie crust. I’ll say right off that you can save yourself a lot of difficulty in this recipe by just going out and buying a premade pie crust at a grocery store, and that the food will still be fine (I used to use Pillsbury before I picked up the recipe I use). However, the pie crust recipe I’m including in this is the one I use with everything, and it’s actually reasonably quick and easy. It also tastes so good I’ll eat the dough raw, like cookie dough, despite my friends giving me hell about getting salmonella.

The quiche recipe is flexible. As I understand it, there are versions out there that are catch-alls for leftover ingredients, and there are versions that are fine cuisine that use a specific combination of the best fresh ingredients. My experience (and the version I’m including) is that onion and some sort of meat are necessary for the basic recipe, and that adding some vegetables to that is not a bad thing.

So, without further ado, the pie crust and quiche recipes (quiche recipe modified from “I’m Just Here for More Food” By Alton Brown.)

Ingredients (Pie Crust)

1 3/4 cup flour

2 tablespoons sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 stick butter, firm and cold

1 cold egg

2 tablespoons cold water

Instructions (Pie Crust)

First, add the flour, sugar, salt, and butter to the food processor (cut the butter into 6-8 chunks). Pulse the food processor for ~20 seconds to reduce the ingredients into a coarse meal.

Next, place the egg and water into a small bowl, and mix them. Then, after they’re well mixed, feed them in through the feed tube of the food processor, then pulse it again (~20 seconds) until the mixture barely holds together.

Now, remove the dough to a floured surface, and form it into 2 balls. – this is a double crust. If both crusts aren’t being used, one can be frozen with little ill effect. Roll out pie crusts with a rolling pin as needed.

(whole wheat variant) The photos for this recipe show that I used 3/4 cup whole wheat flour in this recipe – the taste was great, but it was a bit much for the pie crust holding together well, and so I had to make an overly thick crust in the end, using both crusts’ worth of dough in a single crust, which got a little soggy even with prebaking. I’d use 1/2 cup in the future – the extra character warrants further exploration.

Ingredients (quiche)

1 pie crust

1/3 lb bacon or sausage or ham

1 medium onion

(other vegetables, <2 cups)

2 cups half and half

Black pepper

3 eggs

comte, gruyere, provolone, or sharp cheddar cheese, grated

Instructions

First, preheat the oven to 425 F. Lay out the pie crust in your pie pan (9″ or 10″ pans are better, as they’re less likely to overflow later in the recipe – I use a 10″), and poke many, many holes in the bottom of the crust with a fork to take care of expansion (This is the actual way to fix what all those ‘pie weights’ things are supposed to solve. It’s never failed me). Blind bake the empty pie shell for 15 minutes, then pull the crust from the oven, and lower the oven to 350 F.

On medium – high heat, cook the bacon or sausage, chopping it as its cooking. I mostly do this recipe with American bacon, but the best results I’ve ever had were with leftover bratwurst, so experimentation here can be really good. After a while of cooking, add the chopped onion and reduce the heat a bit, and continue to cook, softening the onion and carmelizing it a little, even. Add any other vegetables toward the end of this process, warming and cooking them in the rendered fat from the meat.

Meanwhile, add the half and half to a medium saucepan, and grate about half of a teaspoon of black pepper into it – this is a taste issue, really, and while I’ve yet to add too much pepper, it’s definitely a strong flavor that should not be overdone. Heat the half and half to a warm temperature on low heat, careful not to make it bubble.

In a separate bowl, beat the eggs until they’re smooth, then, while whisking, pour in about 1/3 of the warm half and half. Then, while whisking in the pan, pour back in the egg/half and half mixture. According to Alton Brown’s book, this tempering process produces a better combination of eggs and cream, and experience has me highly inclined to agree. Using a larger than necessary pan and bowl help a lot in this scenario, especially for those of us that aren’t the most coordinated.

Now, it comes time to add the ingredients to the crust. First, add the meat, onion, and other vegetables mixture. Next, the cream, egg, and pepper mix. Finally, add a sprinkle of any grated cheese you’d like to the top – I’ve listed my favorites in order (don’t overdo this.), as well as a bit of any fresh garden herbs you’d like (parsley and basil are favorites).

Next, bake this in the oven for ~35 minutes. Be careful putting it in the oven – this is where I learned exactly how much my own oven sloped. Once it’s finished, remove it from the oven and give it 15+ minutes to set up (I didn’t on my latest, being a little too hungry. The fact it was better the next day is proof to me I should have let it set), and enjoy!