Blue Cheese and Asparagus Quiche

This quiche serves 4 to 6 people.  You can change the asparagus to asian mushrooms and use Parmesan instead of blue cheese. Get the children involved in the second stage, it is fun!

1.The pastry

Ingredients

• 100 g of plain flour
• 50 g of soft butter (see tip below if you only have hard butter)
• Some tap water (cold)

Method

To make the pastry there are two ways: best practices and a quicker approach.  I am giving both below.

Shortcrust – best practice:

This consist in rubbing the butter with the flour to coat the flour.  You can use your finger tips or the palms of your hands, you will need your two hands. You will obtain a coarse sandy texture.  This is when the water comes in.  Add two tablespoon of water and make a bowl, if you need more water, add only a little at the time.  The bowl should not be sticky.  If you have added too much water, add a bit of flour. It is important that you do not work the dough (no, definitely no kneading!).

Shortcrust – quick acceptable method:

The quick method is handy when you do not have soft butter.  Melt partly or totally you butter, add to the flour with 2 tablespoon of water, use a wooden spoon to mix initially.  Form a rough ball, sprinkle a tablespoon of flour around the ball and roll it into the flour.  Again, do not work the pastry, there is no need to develop the gluten strands here.

Rest time:

In both case, you need to rest the dough for at least ½ hour.

Rolling the pastry:

Pre-baking the pastry is necessary because the fill is very wet and will not cook if you don’t do it, you would end up with a soggy mess! When the dough is rested and you are ready for the next stage, roll the dough with a little flour (to prevent sticking) on a rolling mat.   You can use baking paper if you don’t have a rolling mat.  Some of you may have a kitchen bench which is perfect for rolling the dough directly on, use it! Do not add too much flour or you will start changing the recipe.

Dust the rolling pin with a little flour.  To roll the dough, place the rolling pin inthe middle of the pastry and in one continuous movement gently push away from you.  Do the same pushing towards you.  At this stage, place your tart dish over the pastry to visualise the size of it.

You will roll the pastry in a circle a few centimetres wider than the base (for the sides). Either turn your mat or turn your rolling pin to work in the diagonal direction.  Again gently push backward and forwards the pastry all the way.  This can be done in a few movements but please no back and forth in one location!

Now transfer to the dish by gently lifting the upper third (like on the photo) pastry over the rolling pin and then lifting the rolling pit with the pastry hanging from it.

Carry it across.   There is no need to butter the dish before. Gently bring it down over the tart dish.  To remove the excess pastry, roll the rolling pin on the top of the dish.

Blind Baking

To blind bake, heat up the oven to 160-180 °C.  You have two options here, either use a fork and with the fork teeth do small holes all over the bottom of the pastry.  This will prevent any bubbles forming.

The second method is to place a baking paper on top of the pastry and use baking stones.

Cook in the oven until light golden.  if you are using the baking stones, you may want to remove the tart shell from the oven, lift the baking paper and baking stones (in a metal colander for example) and put back in the oven 5-10 minutes on 140-160°C to get a bit of colour on the bottom part.

 

2. The filling and final bake

Ingredients:

• 6 eggs
• 250 ml cream
• salt and pepper, a point of ground nutmeg
• 1/2 cup blue cheese (if you do not have measuring cups, use a tea mug)
• 1/2 cup of shredded mozzarella
• asparagus and cherry tomatoes

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 160°C if not already on.
2. Mix the eggs and cream in a bowl with a whisk until combined, add salt and pepper . When adding the salt, be aware that the cheese may be quite salty already. Add the spice.Mix well.
3. Crumble the blue cheese and add the mozzarella. Mix.
4. Pour into the tart shell leaving at least 1/2 cm to the edge as the volume will rise when adding the asparagus and tomatoes.  The excess can be baked in a ramekin.
5. Add the asparagus to make a forest, decorate with the cherry tomatoes.
6. Bake until set in the centre.  It may be a bit lighter than on the photo, this is fine.