I am a sporadic cook at best these days. When my children were at home, I used to cook a lot more but most of the time, I serve up the same old dishes that are easy and quick to make and that Jean Michel and I both like. However, now that we have started to go to the Saturday market in Blois where they are a lot of market gardeners I find myself with ingredients that I don’t usually buy.
I usually make my own pastry but recently I bought some fresh pie crust pastry to make a leek or a spinach quiche and promptly forgot all about it. Today, I had a look at the use-by date and saw it was my last chance before I’d have to throw it away. I obviously had no spinach or leeks left so I rooted around the cupboard and came up with some onions. I had some boletus mushrooms in the freezer from our last forage plus some chives so I figured I could combine them all.
Quiche is traditionally made with fresh cream but I usually make it with fromage blanc which I always have in the fridge because I eat it for breakfast every day. If I buy cream it goes off before I remember to use it.
Do you have a favourite quiche recipe?
Ingredients
1 pie crust 2 very large onions Wild or cultivated mushrooms 2 pots (about 1 cup) of fromage blanc 2 pots (about 1 cup) of milk 4 eggs fresh (or frozen) chivesSlice the onions thinly and cook in olive oil until brown and soft. Beat the fromage blanc or fresh cream, milk and eggs together. Season and add the chives.
Cook the pie crust for 5 minutes at 225°C in the oven. I use a convection oven so you will need to add a few minutes if you’re using a regular one.
Line the bottom of crust with an even layer of onions. Place the cooked, sliced mushrooms on top then pour over the egg mixture.
Cook for about half an hour at 200°C. It’s cooked when it puffs up and is slightly brown.
Bon appétit!
Rosemary, that looks so good. Can almost smell it! Have never made a quiche with fromage blanc but will certainly try it. Great you can buy such good pie crusts. Makes it so easy. I always do the Julia Child pastry, not difficult but the extra time is sometimes a disincentive to bothering. Many tks. Must go. Now I’m hungry. Pamela
I have a very easy crust recipe but since I guess the quantities I didn’t like to quote it! I use flour, oil and warm water. Works a charm.
I agree with Pamela about this sounding great. I have forwarded to Arch for him to cook one night. I will let you know how it goes. In terms of the pie crust, what type of Australian pastry would you suggest? Is fromage blanc available in Australia? If not, apart from cream is there any other suitable replacement? You know me…I have no idea regarding cooking.
You used to be able to buy fromage blanc/frais in Australia. The website http://www.healthyfood.com.au gives the following advice: “The nearest commercial alternative to the plain version is a product called ‘quarg’ which is produced by Bouton d’Or. Alternatively, you could use the following:
Equal parts cottage cheese (or Philadelphia extra-light cream cheese) blended with plain yoghurt, until smooth.
A thick, unsweetened Greek yoghurt.
Regular unsweetened yoghurt hung in a muslin-lined sieve, left to drain for several hours.
– See more at: http://www.healthyfoodguide.com.au/articles/2008/december/ask-the-experts-fromage-frais#sthash.0M2WFvLS.dpuf“.
See my answer to Pamela about the crust. Next time I make it, I’ll do some measuring. It’s an easy weight watchers’ recipe I’ve been using for years.
I make quiche with everything, whatever is in the fridge… I’ve been known to open a tin of peas and carrots and turn the drained veggies onto a quiche crust, add some cheese, eggs, cream and milk and, voilà, quiche aux petits pois et carottes. My favourite, though, is the leftover-cheese quiche. It’s what we have a couple of days after a dinner party or any other time we have leftover cheeses that can’t really be served anymore because they don’t look very nice or start getting dry. I just cut them up onto the pie crust, add quite a lot of pepper and my egg and milk mixture and there we go.
Or the really easy tarte à la tomate provençale: spread mustard on the pie crust, slice some comté (or emmental) in thin slices and cover the crust with them, slice up tomatoes and spread those over the cheese, sprinkle with pepper, herbes de Provence and a little olive oil, 40-45 minutes at 180°C – delicious!
Thanks, Pat, for all those tips! I’m very tempted by the tomate provençale one.
YUM! Looks so good and something that the husband would be very excited about…he loves all things mushrooms. 🙂
I used boletus because they were in the freezer, but girolles and trompettes de la mort would be great as well.
Thank you…I make a mean caramel onion pie but only go by a recipe which I have lost…I have been thinking about making an onion pie for my vego’ friends but have not got round to searching online yet…then this recipe came via email.Thank-you!
Hi Helen, look forward to more about your caramel onion pie when you find the recipe again! Hope your vego friends enjoyed the quiche.