• Archive for January 24th, 2009

    Quiche Crust

    January 24, 2009 // No Comments »

    Ingredients, for 1 quiche crust:

    • 2oo g flour
    • 100 g butter, cold and hard, like certain members of the male gender
    • 5 g salt (a pinch)
    • 1 egg
    • 2 T ice cold water

    Procedure:

    To Form the Dough:

    1. Sift the salt and flour together.
    2. Cut the butter into the flour, using either a pastry cutter or your fingertips.
    3. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and add the egg and water, using your fingers to barely mix the ingredients. They won’t really come together. You make that happen by using the “fraisage” technique: grab lumps of the dough, and, using the heel of your hand, drag them across a clean counter, one at a time. Do this just once. The dough will be immediately more supple.
    4. Press the two to four bunches of dough fraisé together. They still won’t really come together, which is good. Press the dough firmly into a ball. Wrap in saran wrap and then flatten into a disk.
    5. Let the dough rest in the fridge overnight, or store it there for a few days. This dough can be frozen and kept for up to a few weeks, although a fresh batch is always optimal.

    To Mold the Quiche:

    1. Let the dough warm up a little before use. It will fracture if it’s too cold, and refuse to flake if too warm (room temp is too warm.) You want it barely pliable. Work the dough momentarily through saran wrap. I like to form it back into a ball and flatten it again, in the span of abut 30 seconds. Overworking is your enemy here.
    2. Roll out the dough according to galette dough instructions, although you want to leave it about 1/4 thick in this case.
    3. Gently roll the dough around your rolling pin, and position over a buttered and chilled quiche ring or tart pan. Use your thumb to gently press the dough into the “corner” between the side and the bottom of your mold, turning the mold all the while with your other hand. The motion should be quick, fluid, and sure. You will learn with practice.
    4. Still using your thumb, press the dough gently to the sides of the mold, with an almost imperceptible downward motion. Then, place your thumb atop the mold and press down, rotating the pan. This creates an even lip of crust which is thicker than the bottom. This is the secret to molding an excellent tart crust, which is unfortunately absent from most recipes. The usual specification for “mold the dough into the tart pan” is incredibly vague, I realize, and withholds critical information, leading to tart blunders that forever discourage the home cook. If you’re wondering why my instructions are often novel-esque, it is because I hope to teach the skills of cooking along with providing ingredient quantities.
    5. Wrap the molded quiche in plastic wrap, and refrigerate until firm again, while you deal with the ingredients for the filling.
    6. Prick the bottom with a fork a few times, and blind bake at 180 celsius, with beans, until the edges are colored but the bottom is still pale. Beat an egg and brush the interior of the crust with it. Add the filling of your choice, and bake until done, about 20-25 minutes.

    The variability of ovens, altitudes, and length of cooking for different filling ingredients prevents me from providing a specific time. But this is good: I have found that since I liberated myself from strict adherence to cooking times, the quality of my baking has improved remarkably. In France, pastry chefs never pay heed to times or even specific temperatures. Most things are baked within the realm of 180 degrees celsius, and cooked for 20-25 minutes. Miraculously, this inclusive frame is effective in baking almost anything to golden brown perfection. The moral of the story here is not to feel beholden to pre-specified requirements; cooking is forgiving, baking a little less so, but with practice it is a science than can become increasingly artistic and personal. Rely on your senses more than anything: you can see when a crust is golden. Removing it before this point just because a recipe says you should is useless, and letting it bake more, to a crisp, is a waste. You will smell doneness, and hear the bubbling of  filling that is ready.

    Posted in The Recipes

    Wild Mushroom Quiche with Shallots and Chervil

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    Ingredients:

    For the Mushrooms:

    • Wild Mushrooms in Season: 300 g chanterelles, 250 g porcini mushrooms, 300 g black trumpet mushrooms (also known as horn of plenty.) * If wild mushrooms are not in season, substitute 250 gshiitake mushrooms, 250 g cultivated mushrooms, 250 g oyster mushrooms.
    • 1 T butter
    • 3 T olive oil
    • 4 shallot, finely diced
    • 1 T chives, chopped
    • 1 T chervil, chopped
    • salt and pepper

    For the Filling:

    • 2 eggs
    • 2 egg yolks (this custard requires more egg yolk than others to balance the moisture of the mushrooms.)
    • 200 ml crème fraîche
    • salt, pepper

    Procedure:

    1. Sautée the mushrooms is extremely hot oil, to evaporate all their water content. Drain them in a sieve.
    2. Sweat the shallots, salted and peppered, in butter.
    3. Add the mushrooms to the shallots, and continue to sweat. Taste for seasoning: remember that there is no cheese or bacon in this recipe to add saltiness, so a generous amount of salt is required, particularly as dairy (in the form of eggs and cream here) needs to beseasoned rather aggressively. Add the chopped chervil and chives.
    4. Whisk the eggs and cream together. Season gently.
    5. Lay the mushrooms on the bottom of the quiche, then pour a small amount of filling on top.
    6. Bake 20-25 minutes at 180 celsius.

    Posted in The Recipes

    Quiche!

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    Alors, quiche! This savory tart, like many things French, is an unfussy mainstay of it’s homeland that has been distorted to a curious state of trendy idolatry dans les Etats-Unis. This is not to say that quiche’s merits aren’t deserving of love, for they absolutely are, but rather a comment on how les imbeciles americaines, in all the splendid glory of their gastronomic ignorance, become taken with food in puzzling ways, determining certain dishes to be in and out of favor, in and out of fashion. A quiche is the opposite of stylish, and therein lies it’s timeless success: a perfectly crumbly crust set with a simple custard of eggs and cream, and judiciously filled with a few complimentary ingredients. The stuff of fads? Je ne pense pas! No indeed, it is the humble nature of the dish that endears quiche to us so enduringly!

    I don’t know anyone worth knowing in this world who isn’t enamored of tart crust, savory or sweet. In fact, I make it a point to discard people upon whom the pleasures of flaky pastry are lost, to keep my distance, for there is something fundamentally wrong with them, something reminiscent of disease, almost. Plus, if you make mini’s, you can call them quickies, as my friend does! I just received a porno call on Skype from a group sex chat, so forgive me if my mind has fallen into the gutter, but from where I stand right now, that seems a rather lurvely bonus.

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    Posted in The Recipes