I used to hate making pastry. Thought it was some act of wizardry. I’ve more recently really come to enjoy the process, and it’s taught me so much about patience – not just the fact that a quiche takes hours to make with all its resting stages, but the patience it requires to have another go when it doesn’t quite go right.
I’ve made this quiche 3 times in the last fortnight.
Attempt number 3 was THE absolute triumph. Turns out that practice does in fact make improvement. I should know this. I practiced my clarinet almost daily between the age of 8 and 21. You can’t be playing the Mozart clarinet concerto, straight off the blocks. Thankfully mastering pastry is a lot quicker than mastering the clarinet.
I found the advice in various cookbooks (and from real life people) quite conflicting on a number of aspects of quiche making from the correct oven temperature to blind baking times, but here are the things that worked for me;
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- Bake in a metal pan on top of a metal baking sheet (to avoid a soggy bottom).
- Chill your pastry twice. Once after making, secondly after lining the tin (something about butter melting slower….)
- Don’t trim your pastry till its had its blind bake (to avoid shrinkage).
- Use a serrated knife and microplane to neaten it up.
- Egg wash the pastry base after a blind bake and bake again briefly (to set up a protective layer for the custard filling).
- Lower the temp of the oven to cook the filling.
Bingo.
You can make a quiche out of just about anything. This one makes the most of seasonal veg box rainbow chard, salty pancetta and creamy feta (also, I love a rhyme). When using the chard, split the stalks and leaves into 2 separate piles, and cook the diced stalks with the onions to make sure they fully soften.
- 125g butter, very cold from the fridge and cubed
- 200g plain white flour
- 4-5 tablespoons of ice cold water
- 100g diced pancetta
- 1 medium white onion, finely diced
- 120g rainbow chard, stalks diced and leaves shredded
- 3 eggs
- 150ml double cream
- Handful chives, finely chopped
- 75g feta, crumbled
- Sea salt and black pepper
- First make your pastry. Sift the the flour into a large bowl, add the butter, and rub in with your fingers, until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add the water a tablespoon at a time (you may not need it all) and mix it together into a firm dough. Wrap in clingfilm and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.
- When the pastry has finished chilling roll out into a large circle, and use your rolling pin to lift it into a greased tin, trim, but leave a couple of centimetres overhang. Chill for another 30 minutes.
- While the pasty is chilling is a good time to cook your filling. Cook the pancetta in a little olive oil in a medium sized frying pan, until lightly browned and crispy remove from the pan, leaving the fat in the pan, then sauce your onions and chard stalks for around 8 minutes until softened. Add the pancetta back in, then the shredded chard greens. Add a lid and cook for a few minutes until wilted. Season to taste, and set aside.
- Pre-heat the oven and a baking tray to 180°C fan.
- Prick the base of the pastry all over with a fork, add a layer of baking paper then some baking beans (I use old dried kidney beans). Blind bake for 20 minutes on top of the pre-heated tray. Then remove the beans and cook for another 10 minutes.
- Remove the pastry case from the oven and trim the overhang so you have neat edges. Whisk together your 3 eggs for the filing in a small bowl, and use a pasty brush to paint a layer of egg inside the case. Return to the oven to dry out for 5-7 minutes.
- Meanwhile whisk the cream into the eggs, and the chives and season with salt and pepper.
- Finally, lower the heat of the oven to 160°C fan, scatter the cooked onion, pancetta and chard over the base of the quiche, then pour in the egg cream chive mix. Crumble the feta over the top, and return to the oven to bake for 25-30 minutes, or until the top of the quiche is just set.
- Cool for around 10-15 minutes, before removing from the tin to serve.