Quiche Algorithm
Jan. 26th, 2010 12:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rushthatspeaksI realized after dinner this evening that I have developed a set of rules that allow me to make a perfect vegetable quiche every time without thinking about it, no matter what vegetables we have in the house.
This is a meal-sized quiche. It can be dinner for four people, by itself, or breakfast for six to eight. Also, not low fat, not remotely. But very very good. Unless you've been eating quiche in France, this will be one of the best quiches you've had (assuming your piecrust is edible).
You need:
one nine-inch pie crust and pie pan-- I don't care how you get the pie crust, make it, buy it, whatever
three eggs
one cup heavy cream, some butter or oil
three cloves garlic, if desired
salt, pepper, other seasonings at your whim
two cups grated cheese-- literally any kind of cheese you like, it does not matter, you can use cheddar, feta, pepperjack, mozzarella, mixtures, as long as it is two cups grated/crumbled
Now here's the part where it becomes awesome: you need at least two out of three of the following categories of vegetables, not kinds. And as long as your vegetables fit into these categories, it doesn't matter what they are. It will still be delicious. I made a quiche a while ago filled with cabbage, turnip, and celeriac and people fell on it and caused it to vanish before I had time to tell them what was in it. Then they sat around going cabbage? turnip? what?
Category 1: Body. This is the major filling, the one you'll have the most of in every bite. Broccoli, potato, sweet potato, cauliflower, cabbage, onion, spinach, mushroom, eggplant, what have you, something that does not melt away to utter nothingness when cooked.
Category 2: Crunch. This needs to be crunchy. Carrot, celery, celeriac, string beans, cabbage, anything that is crunchy. It can be something you could use as the body, but don't use the same vegetable in the same quiche as both categories.
Category 3: Flashy. You have two goals here: one, it tastes really different from either of your first two, which is easy. Two, this is where you can use things that melt away in cooking. Tomato, parsley, roasted chili peppers, mushroom, roasted bell pepper, onion, avocado, apple. Go for the gusto.
As long as you have a vegetable, any vegetable, for two out of three categories, you have a quiche. Having all three is best.
Procedure:
Preheat oven to 350 F.
Chop your body vegetable to bite-size until you have about four cups of it. Layer it in a bowl with a large quantity of salt, several big handfuls. You should be pretty much burying it in salt. Let sit at least twenty minutes. (Potato and sweet potato are the only things I can think of where you should skip this step. Just lightly salt those and leave them alone.)
Chop your crunchy vegetable to fine dice until you have about three cups of it. Mince the garlic.
Chop your flashy vegetable roughly to bite-size or just under until you have two cups of it or less. If using tomato, seed it. If using chilis, just use as many as you'd want for the heat level. Honestly with the flashy vegetable you can get away with using ridiculously small quantities-- tonight's quiche had one seeded small tomato sliced and arranged in a sunburst on the top. It's an accent. Two cups is the upper limit.
Wash the salt off the body vegetable really, really thoroughly, squeezing out moisture with your hands. When you taste a piece it should be mildly salty but not overly so. You may have to wash it multiple times to achieve this.
Throw a fairly large quantity of butter or a couple tablespoons of oil into a saucepan and fry the garlic until it starts to smell. Add your crunchy vegetable and your body vegetable, sprinkle with black pepper, and saute until the crunchy vegetable is as done as you'd like, which should still be pretty crunchy. The body vegetable won't be done yet. Don't wait for it. Add the flashy vegetable and saute for thirty seconds max, just enough to wilt parsley or other greens and heat other things a little.
Pour vegetable mixture into pie shell.
In another bowl, mix cream, cheese, and two eggs until thoroughly combined. This is where you can put in other seasonings, if you feel like it-- a little cumin if you're having eggplant, a little lemon juice for the broccoli, just a dash of a spice you'd use in other dishes on your body vegetable. A little more pepper here goes well. If you're using a cheese that isn't very salty, you can add salt here if you think it needs it. Pour over the vegetables and smooth out any giant lumps of cheese with your hands.
Beat the third egg and pour it over the top. It doesn't have to cover the whole top, so don't worry if you can't get it to spread out very much.
Bake at 350 F for forty-five minutes. A knife inserted into the center should come out clean.
I have been throwing extremely random combinations of vegetables at this for some while now and am pretty certain it's unbreakable. I also use whatever cheese we have lying around. This is the only preparation in which Ruth likes eggplant, and one of the two in which I will eat cooked cabbage. Good cold the next day for lunch, too (there are three of us who eat dinner here, and I'm not kidding when I say this is dinner for four).
I've never tried meat, because I am always cooking for a vegetarian, but I think that with smaller things such as thin-sliced ham or chopped bacon I'd substitute them in as crunchy or flashy, and for larger chunks of chicken or tuna I'd put them in as the body. But I'd still parcook, as one of the major problems with many quiches I've had is that just baking the ingredients will not cook them through. If you try any meats, let me know how it comes out!
This is a meal-sized quiche. It can be dinner for four people, by itself, or breakfast for six to eight. Also, not low fat, not remotely. But very very good. Unless you've been eating quiche in France, this will be one of the best quiches you've had (assuming your piecrust is edible).
You need:
one nine-inch pie crust and pie pan-- I don't care how you get the pie crust, make it, buy it, whatever
three eggs
one cup heavy cream, some butter or oil
three cloves garlic, if desired
salt, pepper, other seasonings at your whim
two cups grated cheese-- literally any kind of cheese you like, it does not matter, you can use cheddar, feta, pepperjack, mozzarella, mixtures, as long as it is two cups grated/crumbled
Now here's the part where it becomes awesome: you need at least two out of three of the following categories of vegetables, not kinds. And as long as your vegetables fit into these categories, it doesn't matter what they are. It will still be delicious. I made a quiche a while ago filled with cabbage, turnip, and celeriac and people fell on it and caused it to vanish before I had time to tell them what was in it. Then they sat around going cabbage? turnip? what?
Category 1: Body. This is the major filling, the one you'll have the most of in every bite. Broccoli, potato, sweet potato, cauliflower, cabbage, onion, spinach, mushroom, eggplant, what have you, something that does not melt away to utter nothingness when cooked.
Category 2: Crunch. This needs to be crunchy. Carrot, celery, celeriac, string beans, cabbage, anything that is crunchy. It can be something you could use as the body, but don't use the same vegetable in the same quiche as both categories.
Category 3: Flashy. You have two goals here: one, it tastes really different from either of your first two, which is easy. Two, this is where you can use things that melt away in cooking. Tomato, parsley, roasted chili peppers, mushroom, roasted bell pepper, onion, avocado, apple. Go for the gusto.
As long as you have a vegetable, any vegetable, for two out of three categories, you have a quiche. Having all three is best.
Procedure:
Preheat oven to 350 F.
Chop your body vegetable to bite-size until you have about four cups of it. Layer it in a bowl with a large quantity of salt, several big handfuls. You should be pretty much burying it in salt. Let sit at least twenty minutes. (Potato and sweet potato are the only things I can think of where you should skip this step. Just lightly salt those and leave them alone.)
Chop your crunchy vegetable to fine dice until you have about three cups of it. Mince the garlic.
Chop your flashy vegetable roughly to bite-size or just under until you have two cups of it or less. If using tomato, seed it. If using chilis, just use as many as you'd want for the heat level. Honestly with the flashy vegetable you can get away with using ridiculously small quantities-- tonight's quiche had one seeded small tomato sliced and arranged in a sunburst on the top. It's an accent. Two cups is the upper limit.
Wash the salt off the body vegetable really, really thoroughly, squeezing out moisture with your hands. When you taste a piece it should be mildly salty but not overly so. You may have to wash it multiple times to achieve this.
Throw a fairly large quantity of butter or a couple tablespoons of oil into a saucepan and fry the garlic until it starts to smell. Add your crunchy vegetable and your body vegetable, sprinkle with black pepper, and saute until the crunchy vegetable is as done as you'd like, which should still be pretty crunchy. The body vegetable won't be done yet. Don't wait for it. Add the flashy vegetable and saute for thirty seconds max, just enough to wilt parsley or other greens and heat other things a little.
Pour vegetable mixture into pie shell.
In another bowl, mix cream, cheese, and two eggs until thoroughly combined. This is where you can put in other seasonings, if you feel like it-- a little cumin if you're having eggplant, a little lemon juice for the broccoli, just a dash of a spice you'd use in other dishes on your body vegetable. A little more pepper here goes well. If you're using a cheese that isn't very salty, you can add salt here if you think it needs it. Pour over the vegetables and smooth out any giant lumps of cheese with your hands.
Beat the third egg and pour it over the top. It doesn't have to cover the whole top, so don't worry if you can't get it to spread out very much.
Bake at 350 F for forty-five minutes. A knife inserted into the center should come out clean.
I have been throwing extremely random combinations of vegetables at this for some while now and am pretty certain it's unbreakable. I also use whatever cheese we have lying around. This is the only preparation in which Ruth likes eggplant, and one of the two in which I will eat cooked cabbage. Good cold the next day for lunch, too (there are three of us who eat dinner here, and I'm not kidding when I say this is dinner for four).
I've never tried meat, because I am always cooking for a vegetarian, but I think that with smaller things such as thin-sliced ham or chopped bacon I'd substitute them in as crunchy or flashy, and for larger chunks of chicken or tuna I'd put them in as the body. But I'd still parcook, as one of the major problems with many quiches I've had is that just baking the ingredients will not cook them through. If you try any meats, let me know how it comes out!
