pascale's quiche lorraine
quiche lorraine was apparently born in the Alsace-Lorraine regions of
France bordering on Germany. These two regions are often linked together, Alsace the
richer one on the border and Lorraine the poorer one just inside, probably since the pair
kept getting stolen back and forth between the two nations in their numerous wars. The
capital city of Alsace is Strasbourg, pascale's hometown, so she is probably a reliable
source for an authentic version of this well known classic which she served to us in her
tiny little Paris apartment in a cheap lightweight Teflon-coated 30cm (12in) diameter
quiche pan. One of which she helped us acquire before returning home. The recipe came
later by email but required some translation / modification.
- Here is the receipe of the Quiche Lorraine:
Mix together in a bowl :
200 g of shredded mozarella (in france you would take: gruyère)
300 g ham cutted in very small cubes
150 g "lardons" (I don't know the translation, may be you know Ani ...)
300 g of white mushrooms cutted in small pieces
and transfer onto the pie crust in the tefal baking plate
In the bowl, mix together :
4 eggs,
15 dl of milk
30 dl of heavy cream
1 spoon flour,
salt, pepper and grounded nutmeg
Pour the mixture onto the pie and bake it at 200° Celsius. Than Enjoy it
!!!!
I miss you
love
Pascale and Arnaud
We'll overlook the mozzarella remark and forget about the untranslatable lard
ingredient, clearly more fat anyway. So here is what we actually did with this input.
ingredients
- crust
- 1 frozen pie crust round, thawed
- flavor additives
- 8 oz = 1/2 lb gruyere cheese, grated (or a mixture of mozzarella,
muenster, feta and gruyere for an extra kick!)
- 4 - 6 oz = 1/4 - 1/3 lb ham, cubed small
- 8 oz = 1/2 lb white mushrooms, chopped, sauteed in:
- 2 T butter
- custard
- 4 eggs
- 2 c light cream or half and half
- 1 T flour
- 1/2 t nutmeg
- salt and pepper to taste
instructions
- Prepare the pie crust in the bottom of the quiche pan as directed on the package
(prebaking about 15 minutes at about 425º ).
- Meanwhile grate the cheese, chop the ham, clean and chop the mushrooms and saute them in
the butter until soft.
- Mix together the custard ingredients in a large bowl.
- Arrange the flavor additives evenly on the pie crust bottom and then pour the custard
mixture over them.
- Bake about 30 minutes at 400º.
- Test for donenesss by inserting a knife or other sharp instrument into the center of the
quiche. Done when it comes out "clean".
- Serve immediately.
notes
- Illustrations available. Very tasty. We'll be doing
more quiche after this.
- Get your ham at the deli counter. Ask for a 1/4 in slice of a high quality precooked
ham. That should be about right. No need to have too much pig in your quiche.
- Impatiently waiting for the email recipe, we gave a try to an appealing recipe from epicurious.com which seemed typical: 6 eggs and 1 2/3
c cream/milk, so we were surprised that only 4 eggs are really necessary with a bit
more liquid. Of course, having reduced the cholesterol, one can also lower the fat in the
liquid component as well. You probably can get away with using all lowfat milk instead.
- This can be done the day before and reheated in the oven for later serving. The
microwave is ruled out if you use a metal quiche pan as we did, but not if you use a
ceramic pan instead.
- Serves 68 if not the entire meal.
- In 2010 ani had some leftover mixed cheeses from some recently made Armenian boereg
(cheese filled phyllo dough): grated mozzarella, muenster, and feta, so we
used about half the gruyere and maybe a bit more than 4oz of this mix, and
it gave it a really nice kick.
vegetarian option
We later tried this as a vegetarian dish by
replacing the onion by one leek and the ham by chopped red (half) and yellow
(half) sweet peppers. A very tasty alternative that surprised bob's skeptical
expectations of ani's ingredient switch. The leek subsitution emerged from our
love for the leek tart. And the fact that we had a
leek and no onion when this transformation took place the first time.
Flexibility feeds creativity?