Kate, from Hills and Plains Seedsavers is coming to visit tomorrow, so to mark the occasion, Kim stepped me through the process on how to make a quiche. I made it all myself!
First of all I made the shortcrust pastry and blind-baked it with some special ceramic balls. The pastry was quite simple. Here are the ingredients.
- 225gm Plain Flour
- quarter tspn Salt
- 100 gm Butter
- Water
I sifted the flour and salt, added the butter and, with my hands, made the mixture into a breadcrumb consistency. Then I added just enough water to make it into a dough. On a well floured benchtop, I rolled it out and put it in the pie dish. The finished product is shown below.
I baked it at 200C for about 15min. The crust was golden brown.
Next I made the filling. I sautéed one brown onion, finely chopped, added about 100gm short cut bacon and cooked for about 10 minutes. Once the onion is translucent, I added about 200 gm of chopped spinach (from the garden), which when raw looks like quite a lot, but when it cooks, it reduces down to about quarter of its original size. I then turned off the heat and let the spinach cook just from the heat of the pan. I let it cool down, and by this time the pastry was cooked and cooling as well.
After about 30 min, everything was cool so I transfered the mixture into a large stainless steel bowl, added two cups of light chedar cheese, and mixed well. I added a small bunch of chopped parsley to the mixture from the garden. This is what it looks like at this stage.
Then I transfered the mixture to the pre-baked pastry and then whisked three eggs that were kindly donated by the chooks, and poured it over the quiche to bind it all together. I topped it with some crumbled fetta, with a little freshly cracked pepper and salt.
It was then into the oven @ 160 degrees C, for 25 minutes. The result was a nicely cooked quiche. About 50% home grown, and 100% home made. You can’t get much better than that! We will have it for lunch tomorrow with a garden salad and some potatoes. Very nice.
Kim and I are looking forward to meeting Kate and her hubby. It will be good fun to catch up for the day.