Quiche Two Ways

Southwest Quiche

Quiche may be only a humble egg pie with a fancy French name, but humble works for me. I love it! It took me some trial and error to find the right formula, but once you have the egg/liquid/cheese ratio the way you like it, you can make quiche a hundred different ways. I’ll show you two ways — a classic Quiche Lorraine and a Southwestern-inspired version, with a tip of my cowgirl hat to the beautiful state of Arizona!

It seems to me that the biggest hurdle that stands between the home cook and a delicious quiche is fear-of-crust-failure. Please, please, please promise me that you will not use a pre-made crust in a disposable aluminum pie plate, even if it’s marked in an enticing way: whole grain, organic, chocolate…  If you really don’t have time to make a crust from scratch, use the Pillsbury crusts that you fit into your own pie plate. They taste more like homemade. (You’ll find them in a long rectangular red cardboard box in the refrigerated section of the grocery store where they stock crescent rolls and those scary pop-tube biscuits.) You can, though, make pie dough ahead and freeze it. Just sayin’.

So here’s the thing: the secrets to pie dough are making sure all of your ingredients are chilled, especially liquids and fats, and handling the dough as little as possible. Also, don’t make the mistake of thinking that it needs to looks perfect in order to taste great. Some of my flakiest, yummiest pie shells had to be patched together in the pie plate before baking. Take the shell pictured here. It has numerous patches, but once it was filled with a custardy quiche concoction, no one could tell! I recommend using a classic pie dough recipe that uses vegetable shortening as well as butter. You can go all butter, but it won’t be as flaky. Click here to go to the King Arthur Flour blog about making pie crust. For proportions for a single crust pie (what you’ll need for a quiche), click here.

My biggest challenge has been “blind baking” a crust without it slumping. I’m really not sure why it’s called blind baking (I assure you that I keep my eyes open at all times in the kitchen); it’s really pre-baking — baking the crust either partially (as for my quiche recipe) or fully (as for a recipe with a filling that is chilled rather then baked. Think Chocolate Cream Pie… yummmm). To save yourself from a few pie crust disasters, learn from my mistakes.

Pie crust should be eased into the pie plate without stretching it. (Remember Stretch Armstrong? Not like that.) Then, the shell should be well chilled before it goes into the oven. I’m a fan of sidling the crust-lined pie pan into the freezer for at least a half hour before putting it in the oven. You can even make the crust a day, week, or even month ahead, roll it out and fit it into the pie plate, cover the whole thing loosely with plastic wrap, and freeze it. It can go from the freezer to the oven when you’re ready to use it. Nifty! (Maybe not a month. You’re likely to forget about it, or you’ll need the space in your freezer. For ice cream, say.)

Such a rascally bean!

Finally, after lining the pie crust with foil, fill the pie plate pretty much all the way with pie weights. I use dried beans. Very fancy! They can be lifted out with the foil when you’re done baking, allowed to cool, and saved for the next time. Easy peasy. The beans help give the unfilled shell structure, so it doesn’t slump down the sides like a teenager in a desk chair in high school. (Can you guess I was a teacher? Get your feet off the desk!!!)

Here’s the recipe for classic Quiche Lorraine ~ silky, custardy, and delish!

1, 9-inch pie crust fitted into a pie plate and well chilled

1/2 lb bacon (8 slices, or so), fried (or baked ~ even better!*), broken into 1/2-inch pieces

3 large eggs + 2 large egg yolks

3/4 cup whole milk + 3/4 cup heavy cream (a bit decadent, but so very yummy)

1/2 tsp table salt + a few grinds of black pepper

1/2 tsp nutmeg (freshly grated much preferred, no need to measure it precisely)

4 ounces (1 cup) Gruyere cheese, shredded (a bit pricey, Swiss is probably okay)

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees, line chilled crust with foil and fill with pie weights (see notes/photo above). Bake 25 minutes, transfer to cooling rack and remove foil and beans. (Crust will be only partially baked. It should look dry but not golden.) Keep the oven on.
2. Whisk together eggs, milk, cream, salt, pepper, and nutmeg in a medium bowl. (If you have a jumbo glass measuring cup, like mine in the photo below, this is a perfect use for it because you will be able to easily pour the liquids into the shell.)
3. Scatter the cooked bacon pieces over the bottom of the still-warm pie shell, then top with the shredded cheese. At this point it’s a good idea to place the pie plate on a rimmed baking sheet, which makes it easier to transfer the filled shell into the oven and ensures that you won’t have any stray drips burning on the bottom of the oven, setting off the smoke detector, and making your dogs howl. (Not that that has ever happened to me!)
4. Pour the whisked egg mixture into the pie shell, then, slowly and carefully, transfer it to the oven.
5. Bake for 30-35 minutes, checking towards the end to see if it is nicely golden brown on top. To keep the crust from over-browning, after about 20 minutes lightly cover the exposed rim of the crust with a handy-dandy pie crust shield (pictured) or a perfectly good aluminum foil collar, made from the foil used to pre-bake the crust.
6. Allow the finished quiche to cool on a cooling rack for at least 30 minutes. It’s also super-good at room temperature, and leftovers can be easily rewarmed or reheated from frozen at 350 degrees for 15 minutes or so. (Do not reheat in a microwave ~ soggy crust is a travesty!)                                                                                                                                                                    *A note about baking bacon: Once you discover the ease of baking bacon, you will never fry again! Simply place slices on a rimmed baking sheet. (I line mine with foil and put a sheet of parchment paper on top for no muss/no fuss disposal of the bacon fat. You could also easily pour the fat into a container if you like to save it .) Bake at 375 degrees for 20-25 minutes, depending on how crispy you like it. I use tongs to flip the slices over half-way through, but if you forget, your bacon will be fine. There is absolutely no splattering with this method, and you can do other things while the bacon does its thing.

To make the vegetarian-friendly Southwestern Quiche, follow the recipe above, but substitute for the bacon, Gruyere cheese, and nutmeg the following:

1/2 large red onion, chopped

1-2 jalapeño or serrano peppers, minced (Your choice for heat level ~ leave in ribs and seeds for maximum kick, serranos are slimmer but spicier than jalapeños. If you’d prefer no heat at all, feel free to use bell pepper. No shame.)

1/2 – 1 cup canned black beans, rinsed and drained

1/2 – 1 cup corn (If it’s corn season, husk a good-sized cob, blanch it in boiling water for a minute, and cut the kernels off. Otherwise, frozen corn kernels thawed are perfectly good.)

1/4 cup chopped cilantro (if you like it, as I do ~ otherwise, use flat leaf parsley or just skip it)

2 teaspoons Southwest Spice Mix (I use Penzey’s, but you could certainly mix together cumin and chili powder instead)

4 oz (1 cup) shredded Monterey Jack or Pepper Jack cheese, shredded (again, your choice for spice level)

Southwest Quiche filling

1. In an 8-inch skillet with a splash of vegetable oil over medium-high heat, sauté the onions, peppers, beans, corn, cilantro, and 1 teaspoon of the spice mixture for about 5 minutes, until the onions are soft and the spice is toasted (you can smell it!)
2. Par-bake the pie shell as described above, then spread the sautéd veggies in the bottom of the still-warm shell, top with the shredded Jack cheese and the egg mixture. (Substitute the remaining teaspoon of spice mixture for the nutmeg in the Quiche Lorraine recipe.)
3. Proceed with steps 5 and 6 above.