Second episode in series 2: Tarts! I love a good tart.
The signature bake is a savory quiche. My siblings-in-law make a wonderful ham and cheese variety for family events and I decided to play off of that combination and make a smokey bacon and spinach quiche. This quiche is easy and comes together quickly, if you want to skip making the crust you can use a store bought pie crust as well. This can be made in a deeper pie crust, or halve the filling and make it as a thinner tart.
3/4 cup milk
Start by cooking that bacon, you can do the method you prefer, skillet or oven, just please do not microwave it because you need a few teaspoons of that bacon fat for the crust.
Add the flour to a food processor with the butter, pulse until the mixture resembles coarse sand. Whisk the egg yolk with 2 tablespoons of ice cold water. Stream into the flour mixture and pulse until moist crumbs start to form. Transfer to a counter and form into a disc, wrap with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 30 minutes.
On a lightly floured counter, roll the dough out to be 2 inches wider than your pie plate. Use your rolling pin to transfer to the pie place, trim the edges to 1 inch and tuck under. Crimp or decorate the edge as desired. Wrap the whole pie plate in plastic wrap and freeze at least 30 minutes or up to a few days. I like to do up until this step the day before and then bake in the morning for brunch. I love brunch.
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and line the crust with parchment and weight it down. I have pie weights but have also been known to use dried beans and once I used steel cut oats which I then cooked and it had a yummy toasted flavor. Bake for 25 minutes, then remove the parchment/beans and bake an additional 5 minutes. Remove and allow to cool while preparing the filling.
Reduce the oven temperature to 375 degrees. Whisk the eggs until smooth, adding the cream, milk, salt (2 teaspoons) and pepper (1 teaspoon). Layer half the bacon and cheese in the bottom of the pie crust, pour the egg mixture over the top but do not overfill the crust. Press the spinach into the custard, it is okay if a few leaves poke out. Transfer the quiche to the oven very carefully, then put the remaining bacon and cheese on top. Add any remaining egg mixture if there is room.
Bake 12 minutes and then without opening the oven reduce the temperature to 325 degrees and bake for an additional 50 minutes If your oven doesn't bake perfectly evenly rotate halfway through baking. If your oven does bake perfectly evenly then pat yourself on the back and you should probably test that because it is a rare luxury. Allow to cool so you don't burn your mouth before serving.
YUM!
No comments:
Post a Comment