Hey guys, so with all the Spring holidays approaching,
I thought it was time that we tackle
one of my favorite party foods, Quiche.
Quiche is one of those things
that you really want to have
a foolproof recipe at your disposal
because when it goes wrong, it can really go wrong
and we have all seen those effects.
The crumbly crust,
the fillings that have no structure
and turn into a bit of a wobbly mess,
the add-ons that are sort of half cooked.
Yeah, we've all seen it.
It's not pretty, but not to worry
because I am going to arm you with a fantastic recipe
that'll have you making a great tasting quiche
every single time.
The best part is, it can all be made the day before,
my kind of meal.
Before we begin, tip number one has to do
with choosing the right pan.
I'm a big fan of these removable bottom tart pans
because you can make a quiche or a tart
and then when it's fully baked, all you have to do
is remove the ring
and you are left with a beautiful presentation.
If you want to know where to get one of these pans,
I put a link in the description for where you can get one
for just under $20.
If you don't have a tart pan
or you don't have a food processor, that's okay.
Here's how you can make another great looking quiche.
Go and buy one of those store-bought pie crusts,
typically the ones that are deep dish will work the best.
Here's a little cheat that I learned
when I worked in a bakery when I was 16,
it was my first job,
and my job was pie duty.
One of the things that they taught me how to do,
which is a great little cheat,
is to take the store bought pie crust,
crimp it all around the edges so that you're creating
sort of a nice, flat surface
then go in and start pinching the side,
just creating nice little triangles
all around the edges.
When you're done, it'll look like you actually
rolled out that dough and formed it yourself.
It really looks great with this recipe, as well.
The first thing we're going to do
to make our homemade crust, is we're going to take
a cup and a quarter of flour,
add it to our food processor
with a teaspoon of salt.
Give that a light pulse.
Then you're gonna add one half cup of butter
and you want to make sure that that butter
is in little cubes.
Go ahead and just add it as you're pulsing the machine.
You'll know when it's done when the flour resembles
a coarse meal.
Here is my second tip when it comes to preventing
those crumbly crusts.
You really want to make sure that you put some egg
in your dough
because the egg is really gonna help
the flour and the butter bind together
and prevent your crust from turning into a crumbly mess.
So I'm a big fan of adding egg and water
to pie crust dough.
You're gonna give your egg a nice light whisk,
you're gonna add that egg mixture to your flour mixture
just pulsing all the while
until a nice dough develops, and you can stop.
This point, I know we're supposed to take that dough,
wrap it up, put it in the fridge for 30 minutes
but I have found that I cheat a little bit
and it always tends to work for me
so I'm going to share with you my little technique.
I know this is very unconventional
and there could be pastry chefs out there
that are rolling your eyes at me.
I know, but this is what I do.
I take the dough, I roll it out really quickly,
just reminding myself
that I know I'm not supposed to do this
but I'm doing it anyway.
Seems to sort of help move things along.
Then I take the dough, I plop it into my tin,
work it in all around the sides
making sure that it's nice and fit
and then I do what I call little fist bumps.
I take my fist and I go all along the side
just making sure that the sides of the pan are all fitted.
Sometimes when you do that, the dough will rise up
to the tart pan, that's okay, that's what you want
because we're gonna take a little paring knife
and we're going to trim all along the side of the dough.
What we're gonna do now is we're gonna take our tin
and we're gonna pop it in the freezer
for at least 20 minutes.
That's okay, we have other things to do
while our dough is getting nice and hard.
This stage, we're gonna work on our filling.
You're gonna take out a large saute pan.
To that, you're gonna add a tablespoon of butter.
Once it's nice and melted,
you're gonna add a half a cup of diced white onion.
Then you're gonna season, just to taste,
with some salt and pepper.
Then once it's nice and sauteed
and those onions are translucent,
you can go ahead and add the spinach.
If you have never cooked with spinach before,
not to worry.
It looks like a ton of spinach,
and I'm using six ounces here,
but this is going to cook down to about a cup.
Just keep your eye on it and give it a saute
till it's nice and wilted.
Once it reaches that stage, you can go ahead
and turn off your flame and let the filling cool.
Meanwhile, we are going to work on our egg batter.
In a large bowl, you're going to add 10 eggs,
give those a good whisk,
then we are going to add a cup of heavy cream.
This is my other tip for you
if you wanna get a foolproof quiche.
Quiche, at the end of the day,
is not diet food, unfortunately.
It tastes too good to be diet food.
It's really party food
and if you want to make a fantastic tasting quiche,
you've gotta go with the full cream.
A lot of you know this as double-pouring cream.
In France, when I buy it, it's called creme liquide,
so, really, it's just a heavy, pourable cream
that you can use to really give your quiche
a lot of structure.
If you end up using milk or half and half,
your quiche is probably not gonna have
that kind of structure, it'll be kind of wobbly
because you really need that full fat
to give it that structure.
So, word to the wise, use the heavy cream.
Whisk that together
and then we're gonna add our seasonings.
We're going to add a teaspoon of salt,
some freshly cracked pepper
and an eighth of a teaspoon of cayenne pepper.
I love a little kick in a quiche
in the form of some cayenne pepper
but if you're not a fan of spice,
you could either leave it out
or another traditional thing to do to add to a quiche
is some nutmeg,
so you could add an eighth of a teaspoon of ground nutmeg.
Give that a whisk and there you have it,
your egg mixture is done.
This is a great recipe that you could really put
any filling into this.
I like the spinach and the onion because
I think it's really great for Spring time
but you could use cheese and ham,
you could use mushroom, ratatouille,
really any filling you like you can add to this batter
so really get creative, the choice is up to you.
At this point, our spinach and onion mixture
is probably cooled
so you can go ahead and just pour it out
onto a cutting board.
You'll want to give that spinach a nice, rough chop.
Go ahead and place it into your bowl,
give it a whisk
and then we are going to add a half a cup
of grated Gruyere cheese.
It's really the best kind of cheese
to use for a quiche like this.
So, now, here is another tip for you.
A lot of times, quiche recipes will call for
blind baking the crust ahead of time,
which essentially just means taking your crust,
putting some parchment paper down with some beans
and baking the crust.
I have found that this is where you can really trip up
because a lot of times, that crust will not hold its shape.
It'll start to sort of sink down
and then you end up with a sort of misshapen crust.
Yeah, I hate the blind baking,
I am really not a fan of it.
I think it does more damage than good, in my opinion.
What I do, and this is why we froze it,
we wanted to make sure that that crust
was nice and hard when it hits a hot oven,
we are just gonna go ahead and work quickly
and we are gonna pour our batter right into our crust
and we are gonna pop it in a 350 degree oven
for about 45 to 50 minutes.
You want to keep your eye on it.
You want to make sure that the crust
and that the quiche, is nice and golden brown
but that the quiche is not wobbly.
If it starts to wiggle or jiggle,
your quiche is not done
and it probably needs another five to ten minutes.
If your quiche is getting too brown on top,
you can just go ahead and cover it
with some aluminum foil
and that way, the quiche will cook inside
but your crust and your quiche will not burn on the outside.
When your quiche is done, you can go ahead
and pull it out of the oven and let it cool.
If you're serving it right away,
you can go ahead and just slice it in half
and then slice it into quarters or eighths.
I also love to serve this dish
with a beautiful tossed salad
and if you missed last week's recipes,
you can actually click on the annotation here
and you will see some of my
favorite salad dressing recipes
that would be perfect for this quiche.
If you wanted to make this ahead of time for a party,
that is a great thing to do.
In fact, this is what I'm going to be doing
for Easter this year.
You can go ahead and make your quiches,
let them cool completely,
then wrap them in aluminum foil,
pop it in the fridge overnight
and then when you want to serve them,
go ahead and put them in a 300 degree oven,
still covered, for at least 20 minutes.
Then remove the foil and allow them to bake
without the foil for about five minutes.
You'll see, all you have to do the day of the party
is toss your salad and warm up your quiche
and you're good to go.
I love this recipe because quiche is such an elegant thing
to serve at a party.
It's great lap food, too, so you can slice a piece,
if you've got a big crowd
people can kind of eat it on their laps.
They're having something elegant that isn't too messy.
People will be so blown away
when they heard that you made
your own quiche, crust and all.
I hope you guys give this one a try
and let me know whatcha think
and I will see you back here next week
when we're gonna have a really fun collaboration
all around Easter dessert so you won't wanna miss that.
I'll see you then. Bye.
(upbeat bluesy music)