Bacon-Leek Quiche

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Quiches, tarts, pies…there’s never been a time when I could have said no to any of these. They’re just very appealing to me, with their crisp or flaky crusts and the sheer unlimited possibilities for fillings, both sweet and savory. If you open my fridge, there are very good chances you’ll find a roll of ready-to-use crust in case a sudden craving for quiche or tart overcomes me and I don’t have the time or patience to make my own crust. Recently, I discovered a ready-to-use, organic whole wheat crust in my regular supermarket and was amazed at the almost home made taste and look when it came out of the oven.

When it comes to quiches, I have been on some sort of quest for a few months now. A lot of bakeries here sell small, tartlet-sized quiches for lunch and I’m lucky enough to have such a bakery with the most amazing leek quiche and “Quiche Lorraine” at walking distance from my workplace. The thing about their quiches that amazes me the most is the flan-like texture of their egg mixture. Most of the time, my fillings have the texture of scrambled eggs rather than the creamy-wobbly flan texture. I already figured that mine had too many eggs and not enough cream/milk. But I never really knew how to change it as the recipes featuring 1 liter of milk or cream just scared me. I mean, how can something so liquid not turn my nice crisp crust into mush, even if blind baked before?

But I just had to try, seeing a lot of recipes on the net that used huge amounts of liquid, so I told myself it somehow had to work. And it did. The egg-milk mixture came pretty close to the ones from my favorite lunch time bakery. And I even used some leftover mixture to make something resembling a flan. Basically, I whisked a tablespoon of parmesan into the leftover egg/milk mixture and poured it into small ramequins, then let it set in the oven together with the quiche. It wasn’t bad at all and would probably make a good started with a few leafy greens.

Ingredients:

- 1 ready-to-use or homemade crust
- 200g of bacon (I used bacon strips without too much fat as I don’t like proper bacon with a lot fat)
- 3 large leeks, chopped
- 1 teaspoon butter
- 4 fresh eggs
- 400 ml milk
- 100 ml single cream
- handful of grated cheese (I used emmenthal)
- salt, pepper and nutmeg

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line a quiche or tart dish with baking paper. Roll out your crust and carefully place it into the dish. Cover with some more baking paper and about 500g of dried lentils (or whatever you use to blind bake) in order to avoid the crust to collapse or the bottom to rise. Put in the oven and bake for 20 minutes until the edges start to brown. Take out, discard the baking paper cover and lentils and set aside to cool down. Turn the oven temperature down to 150°C.

In the meantime, melt the butter in a pan on medium heat and add the bacon strips. When they start coloring, add the leek, stirring thoroughly to mix bacon and leek. Stirring regularly, leave to cook for about 10 minutes. The leek should be soft and tender, but not brown. Set aside to cool down.

In a large bowl, combine the eggs, milk and cream, and beat with an egg whisk (or a hand blender), until it starts to get frothy. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg to taste.

Layer the crust with bacon and leek. Pour the egg/milk mixture over the filling and sprinkle with grated cheese. Push into the oven and bake for at least an hour. It is important to let the mixture set at a lower temperature and to give it a long baking time. I’m sure you can lower the temperature even more and extend the baking time. When the tip of a knife inserted into the filling comes out clean, your quiche is ready. Take out of the oven and let rest for 5 minutes. Serve with a nice salad.

The perfect fresh asparagus

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It’s asparagus season over here. Finally! So I’ll just post a very quick recipe of the first fresh asparagus I had this season. It’s very easy and quick to prepare and you don’t need much else beside the asparagus. I love to prepare in this simple manner as you really get the full taste of the vegetable, without too many other flavors. I served them as a side for dinner.

Of course, as with most produce, getting fresh and good quality asparagus is key. I bought a bundle of organic green asparagus. Did you know that green asparagus gets its green color because it’s exposed to the sun for a short time, while the white asparagus is kept under the surface until the harvest? I didn’t know this and read it in a magazine only yesterday. I somehow thought green and white asparagus were simply two different varieties. As they say, you learn something new everyday…

Ingredients:

fresh green asparagus (the quantity depends on how much you want to eat and how you want to serve it. I had about 6 stalks per person)
3 spring onions, chopped
salt and pepper
2 teaspoons parmesan

Directions:

Wash the stalks and cut their rough end (1-2 cm, depending on how stringy their lower end is). Melt a generous knob of butter in a pan that’s large enough to hold all the asparagus in line. Before the butter starts to brown, add the asparagus to the pan and roast on high heat for approx. 5 minutes, turning them around a few times. The lower the heat to medium, add the spring onion, salt and pepper to taste. Leave on medium heat for about 10 more minutes until the asparagus starts to soften.  I usually cut a thick end and taste to make sure it’s soft enough. When the asparagus is done, sprinkle over the parmesan and serve.

An obsession with lemon curd

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I officially have an obsession with lemon curd. I just made it for the second time in 5 days. And since I ate the whole bowl (it was a  small one, I assure you) with a spoon the very same evening the last time I made it, I wisely decided to make a double batch this time.

Lemon curd just has the perfect balance between sweet and sour, it makes my taste buds tickle and sends me straight to heaven after the very first spoon. Please note that this very first spoon usually burns my tongue as I can’t seem to gather enough patience to wait until the stuff cools down. Anyway, there was a time where I didn’t like lemon curd so much. But that’s probably because it doesn’t involve chocolate and there were times where everything sweet and qualifying for dessert needed to have lots of chocolate in it. But somehow this has changed and I frequently crave lemon curd and lemon meringue tart.

Last week, I had one of those cravings. At 8 in the evening when I actually wanted to sit down and relax. But I couldn’t get the thought of it out of my head, so I figured I’d better get up and make a batch in order to get the craving out of my head. You know the rest of the story. This time, I made a double batch, keeping half of it in the fridge to make a lemon meringue tart tomorrow (and probably sneaking into the kitchen every 5 minutes this evening until the other half is gone).

I used the recipe I found in the awesome book “Tartes&Tartelettes” by Catherine Kluger (the french book title is “Atelier Tartes”). The book features both incredible savory and sweet tarts. I only adapt the amount of sugar and lemon juice according to what I want to do with the curd. When I know I’ll be making lemon meringue tart, I like to add a bit more lemon and less sugar as the meringue is very sweet and make a fine balance with the sour curd. But if I know I’ll mainly be eating the curd out of the bowl, or top it with fresh fruit, I like to make it a bit sweeter. Also, I used brown sugar instead of regular sugar and it works very well. At the beginning of the heating process, the color looks a bit off (somewhat brownish), but it turns to yellow as soon as the ingredients start to combine with the heat.

Ingredients (for one batch that should be enough for one lemon tart):

3 eggs
75g butter
120g sugar
zest of one lemon or lime
juice of three lemons or limes (I usually use a mixture of both)

Directions:

Melt the butter in a skillet on medium heat. Be careful not to let it brown! In the meantime, grate the lemon zest and squeeze the lemon or lime juice. Combine the eggs and the sugar in a bowl and whisk to combine. Add the mixture to the butter, stirring constantly, then add the lemon juice and zest. Move up the heat a little bit and continue stirring until the mixture is just below boiling point and starts to thicken. Stir some more, being careful not to let the mixture boil. Remove from the heat and let cool down (if you have the strength to resist temptation).

And here’s what I’ll make tomorrow (picture is from the last time I made lemon meringue tart):