Quiche

[chefzadi]

Oops, The quantity I gave you is more suitable for a tarte tatin (just add a pinch of sugar to the dough for a slightly sweet crust.)

For quiche these quantities

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour

8 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into tiny pieces

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 to 4 tablespoons ice water

Again the trick is not let the butter melt into the dough. Tiny "grains" of butter should be surrounded by flour. After refrigeration if the dough is too hard to roll leave it out for a while untill it's easier to work with. If you want to try a deep dish quiche just double the quantities of the first recipe.

If anyone followed the previous quantity and has already made the crust for quiche, just make a partial quanitity of dough and add it the one you've already made. It will be fine.

Sorry if there was any confusion.

[Chufi]

I make a lot of quiches/ savoury tarts and most of the time I make my own crust.

Great tip: before you start rubbing the flour and butter together, have a large piece of plastic wrap ready on the counter. When you're ready mixing the dough, you gather it all up in a ball and drop it on one side of the piece of plastic. Fold the plastic over and press together to shape the dough into a flattened disc, before putting it in the fridge to rest. (The flattening makes it much easier to roll out later).

Edited February 22, 2005 by Chufi (log)

[pam claughton]

I'm obsessed with Quiche. It started a few weeks ago, believe it or not at the Cape Cod Hospital. While waiting for my grandfather to come out of surgery, I wandered over to the Casual Gourmet, a catering company that has a small operation there. I got a spinach and artichoke quiche, and have been craving it madly ever since. What I loved about it was that it had a very light texture, not too eggish, so it melted in your mouth and you just tasted cheese and butter and fresh veggies.

I then went a few days later to another breakfast place, wishing for the same experience, and instead getting something that was more like a very eggy, almost curdlike filling. Yuck.

Then, I discovered heaven again at Panera Bread. They have a fantastic little quiche/souffle thing baked in puff pastry. The texture is almost identical to the Casual Gourmet one.

I want to try to recreate this at home. Eating quiche out almost every day this week is getting a bit ridiculous.

I made one attempt, and the result was too eggish, curdlike custard. So, I guess I'm looking for advice on how to get more of a soufflee-like texture. Any recipe hints? Thanks!

Pam

Edited September 8, 2005 by pam claughton (log)

[JayBassin]

Separate the eggs first and fold softly beaten whites back into the yolk base.

[FoodMan]

Buy the Bouchon book and make the (IMHO) BEST QUICHE EVER. The texture of the filling is just like you describe, creamy-melt-in-your-mouth.

Here are discussions about it in the Bouchon thread starting Here

Just be advised that this quiche, is one of the trickiest things to master. Especially if you use the ring mold rather than a pie pan.

Also here is a discussion of Russ Parson's article about this specific recipe and his adaptation.

Goog Luck.

Elie

[pam claughton]

Buy the Bouchon book and make the (IMHO) BEST QUICHE EVER. The texture of the filling is just like you describe, creamy-melt-in-your-mouth.

Here are discussions about it in the Bouchon thread starting Here

Just be advised that this quiche, is one of the trickiest things to master. Especially if you use the ring mold rather than a pie pan.

Also here is a discussion of Russ Parson's article about this specific recipe and his adaptation.

Goog Luck.

Elie

←

Elie,

Thank you!!! The best part is I already have Bouchon, and didn't realize there was a good quiche recipe there.

Thanks a million,

Pam

[Ling]

Ohh...I was going to post about the quiche recipes in the Bouchon cookbook too. Very tasty filling... !

[Rehovot]

I love quiche.

Budget-stretching, versatile quiche.

This is quite a good rich quiche; the recipe refers to the filling as custard. I added some chopped garlic and a hearty dose of herbes de Provence to the filling. The custard is goat cheese and only a couple of eggs.

Could someone indicate what makes Bouchon's recipe great? Or pm me in more detail?

[russ parsons]

having spent quite a bit of timewith the bouchon quiches (mmmm, quiche), i need to point out that: a) the recipe is a little tricky--mainly because the dough is so wonderful you'll be tempted to roll it too thin. don't do this; it will leak. keep it thicker than normal. and b) this is a very custardy quiche. that's what keller thinks a quiche should be. i'm not sure whether that's what you meant by "eggy."

[FoodMan]

Could someone indicate what makes Bouchon's recipe great? Or pm me in more detail? 

←

Five reasons that make Bouchon's quiche the best:

1- Thick crust, rolled to about 1/4 inch. The

crsut is buttery and tender with the butter thoroughly incorporated in, non of that bits of butter in the dough.

2- The quiche is made in a 2 inch ring mold. So, it is quiet thick resulting in a perfect proportion of crust to filling. Like Russ said, it can be made in a deep dish pie pan instead.

3- The filling base (7 eggs, 2cream, 2milk I think) is very custardy, creamy and smooth. It is barely "solid" when warmed and definitly melts in the mouth. I actually prefer a more "eggy" filling so I made this several times and I now use more eggs and a little less dairy.

4- The end result looks absolutly stunning and very impressive.

5- For me at least, and this might sound strange, getting this quiche recipe nailed down was a challenge. It is tricky and can result in a mess if the dough has a small leak in it. So now that I am comfortable making it, it's sort of satisfying.

This in my book is the best quiche ever. Damn, now I have to make one this weekend...and I love the goat cheese idea.

Tip: I am not sure if I mentioned this on the other thread or not but I found out the best way to get the crust perfectly right and to reduce the chance of leakage is to measure the flour BY WEIGHT not by volume.

Elie

[Jason Perlow]

The best quiche requires the use of much more heavy cream than most timid Americans are willing to put in it. To quote Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men:

You want the truth? YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!

[edsel]

... this is a very custardy quiche. that's what keller thinks a quiche should be. i'm not sure whether that's what you meant by "eggy." ←

When Pam said she doesn't like "eggy" quiche, I too thought that might rule out Keller's recipe (which I instantly thought of when I saw the topic title). But Keller's quiche is "eggy" in the best possible sense. The custard is delicate, tender:

When it is sliced the edges should be clean and the exposed custard should have a smooth, almost liquid sheen. When it arrives hot, it should tremble as if were on the verge of collapse.

Pam ain't the only one obsessed with quiche.

Elie already summarized the recipe pretty well. (It's six eggs, not seven, BTW). One thing that surprised me is that Keller calls for the egg/cream/milk mixture to be mixed in a blender until it's light and foamy. This runs counter to other recipes I've seen that say not to beat too much air into the custard.

I don't have a two-inch bottomless tart ring, but a spring-form cake pan or removable bottom tart pan work well. Keller is adamant about avoiding the use of pie shells for making quiche. He thinks that's what "ruined" quiche for Americans, and he's on a mission to redeem quiche's reputation here.

[helenjp]

Oh good, there was a thread already about this!

My Japanese friend and I were talking quiche yesterday, and she said she wasn't happy with the texture of the filling. Her quiche looked overbrowned on top, she said she cooked it at 220, but that's in a SMALL countertop oven, so I'm sure the temperature would have taken a while to recover after the raw quiche went in.

I suggested she try baking it 10minutes at 220, then lowering the temperature to 180 or so for a while....(I only said 10 mins because it's a really, really small quiche she's making!).

Curious to know...what do you think is the best oven temperature for quiche...and do you think the hot oven-sheet trick under the quiche pan helps, or would it overheat the egg?

It's been a while since I made quiche, so I'm feeling in an experimental mood...

[srhcb]

I make quiche when I want to throw something together quickly and use up some leftovers.

I use the formula for quiche from The King Arthur Flour 200th Anniversary Cookbook:

1 Single Crust (I've posted a very easy one on RecipeGullet)

1 1/2 Cups vegetables/meat etc

1 1/2 Cups liquid (3-4 eggs + milk/cream/yogurt/sour cream etc)

1 1/2 Cups grated cheese

Last night I made one with leftover wild rice and ham and some colby cheese in a crust flavored with taco spices. It was very well recieved by all, including 2 yr old, who's attracted to anything that even remotely resembles his favorite, "pizzie".

[Rachel Perlow]

We're in the process of making some quiche right now. The crust is made (Martha Stewart's pate brisee), pie plate lined and chilling inside a plastic bag on the deck (for future reference, there's also about 2 feet of snow on the deck), the custard is in the fridge (Alton Brown's Refrigerator Pie), fillings cooked and cooled (spinach, mushroom, shallot an assortment of chopped up charcuterie, asiago cheese).

The question is whether to blind bake the crust or not? Some recipes say to, others do not. Help.

Answer quick, we want to bake this soon.

[JAZ]

I always blind bake the crust for quiche.

[jeniac42]

It's funny, I made quiche for the first time yesterday, and I didn't even realize this thread existed. I just threw together a flaky pastry dough which I made with 100g unbleached AP flour, 65g of cold unsalted butter, 2g of salt, and some water to hold it together. I blind-baked the crust, which was pressed into a 1qt All-Clad straight-sided saucepan (because I didn't have anything else clean to bake it in). I definitely didn't bake it for long enough, because in the end the crust was underbaked.

For the filling I used 3 eggs and probably 3 or 4T of milk, with maybe 2 or 3T of grated Parmegiano-Reggiano. I put cooked, drained spinach and cooked, chopped bacon into the crust, poured the egg mixture in, and baked it at, um, 350F until it looked done. It didn't really brown on the top, and it didn't turn out watery or rubbery at all (thank God).

Amazingly, it came out OK (aside from the underbaked crust), but I doubt it would meet any of the expectations set in this thread! I'll have to try everything mentioned above.

Still, I'm glad my impromptu "Valentine's Day" breakfast didn't turn out a total disaster....

[KatieLoeb]

I was always under the impression that the liquid:egg ratio for a quiche was between 1/3-1/2 cup milk or cream per egg. If that Bouchon recipe has FOUR cups of liquid in it to only 6 eggs how does it ever solidify?

[Rachel Perlow]

I blind baked it, but forgot to weigh it down! I had to smush it a bit with a fork to make room for the filling. Silly me, since I'm using disposable pie tins for this (I had them, why not use'm?), next one, I'll put another pie tin on top and weigh that down, since I don't have any parchment just now.

Here's the second quiche crust before and after baking:

[Jason Perlow]

Initial snowstorm quiche photos:

Filling, sans Asiago cheese

Quiche browning in toaster oven

Cooling

[divalasvegas]

Initial snowstorm quiche photos:

Cooling

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Yum Jason! Umm, I'm inviting myself for dinner, so the directions to your house would be.................?

[Jason Perlow]

Plated

The 2006 Torino Olympics Canon Extreme Quiche Cam

[rjwong]

Jason, that quiche looks better than the broccoli quiche you made over at the other discussion thread.

[Jason Perlow]

Yes, the current quiche with pate brisee was better than the Freedom Tart, I'm sad to say. But we -did- use Italian salumi and Asiago cheese, so technically, its Italian.

I've merged the current thread with the previous one, thanks for letting me know about it.

[Rachel Perlow]

Yum Jason!  Umm, I'm inviting myself for dinner, so the directions to your house would be.................?

←

Free quiche for anyone who wants to come and shovel our driveway!

Edit: It's in the oven right now... the crust was blind baked darker than before, with a weight. It almost looks commercial. The filling is the same mix of salumi, spinach & mushroom, but with some artichoke mixed in, and fresh mozz & parmesean cheese. Mmm. Come and shovel us out and I'll give you the whole thing!