Week 33 - Quiche Lorraine
Since I overcame my hesitation to try a Julia Child recipe, with Week 26's Strawberries and Cream Filled Cornucopias, I decided it was time to tackle another one. This time I made Quiche Lorraine from the 1961 cookbook, "Mastering the Art of French Cooking", by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle, and Simone Beck. I have heard of Quiche Lorraine but have never had it before. It sounded delicious and not that difficult to make, so with the B-52's song in my head, I decided to jump right in.
"Mastering the Art of French Cooking", by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle, and Simone Beck.
Two of the many pages of instructions for making a quiche shell.
The first step was to make and pre-bake the shell for the quiche. The book's instructions for making the shell were quite detailed and took up four pages of instructions. I don't have a quiche pan but the recipe stated that a pan with a removable bottom could be used, so I decided to use my tart pan. The recipe called for sifted flour, butter, shortening and salt and was very easy to make. The consistency was a bit softer and more buttery than traditional pie crust.
My flour sifter, which I avoid using as much as possible because it is such a pain to clean.
The ingredients for the shell
Dough, ready to be chilled
Once the dough was made and chilled in the fridge, I rolled it out and lined the tart pan. The recipe instructed to partially bake the shell. To prevent the crust from bubbling up, I lined the shell with foil and pie weights. While the crust was cooling, I moved on to making the filling.
The tart pan lined with dough
Pie weights in place
Newly baked shell, ready for filling
The filling consisted of mainly eggs and cream as well as butter, salt, pepper and nutmeg. After these were mixed together I sautéed diced ham in butter. The original recipe called for lean bacon, but stated that ham could be used as well. Since there was already so much butter and cream I thought that bacon might make the quiche too greasy.
The quiche filling ingredients
To assemble, I lined the bottom of the crust with the ham and then poured the egg mixture on top and dotted it with butter. At first everything appeared to be okay, but there was apparently a crack in the crust, so the filling started to leak out. I quickly covered the outside of the tart pan with aluminum foil to try and stop the leak as much as possible. Then the entire thing went into the oven.
Ham lining the bottom of the quiche
The newly filled shell, just before the filling started to leak out.
Once it came out of the oven, I served it right away. A fair amount of the filling had leaked out the slices were not as thick as they should have been. Next time I wouldn't use the tart pan but will use a pie pan instead, so this shouldn't happen again.
The quiche just out of the oven. The foil on the outside did a fair job holding most of the filling in place.
The finished quiche. Much of the filling on the right-hand side had drained out so the ham is much more visible.
The quiche was delicious and creamy. I didn't cook the shell long enough, so it was a bit more gummy than I would have liked. Overall we were very happy with it and I plan to try making this again, but with different fillings.
When we had leftovers the next day, I preheated a pizza stone in a 500 degree oven and put the slices on that. After cooking it for a few minutes the crust crisped up very nicely and the previous gumminess was completely gone. The crust was now buttery and delicious and tasted almost like shortbread. I would recommend this method for reheating a quiche in general and especially if the shell is undercooked.
Cookbook: "Mastering the Art of French Cooking", by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle, and Simone Beck, published in 1961
Recipe: Quiche Lorraine
Difficulty: Easy
Alterations: I used ham instead of bacon
Results: Delicious, but a bunch of filling leaked out so the slices weren't as thick as they should have been.
Make Again: Yes, though I would use a pie or cake pan next time and play around with different fillings.