Quiche, Revisited

Well after the weekend's latest test batch of quiche with nary a crumb remaining, the results are in. My recipe is a winner!

Of course, like many great songs, many great recipes come to life through trial and error and from borrowing the best elements of other recipes. I poured over every recipe I could find, from The Joy of Cooking to The New Basics to every recipe I could find over the web, and I just kept combining ingredients and amounts until I got it right.

Now before I proceed, I must state this disclaimer - my quiche is more of a savory pie... heavy on the fillings and light on the custard. But hey, no one's complained so far!

And also, in my usual haphazard manner, I'm going to give you guidelines, but remember - feel free to improvise on the filling especially, though I don't recommend screwing with the custard formula too much, ok?

So we're going to do this in three parts: the crust, the filling, and the custard.

For the crust, I used this recipe for the "pate brise".

And yeah, you can also use a store bought crust if you're not feeling ambitious. But once you try it a few times, it's not so hard. And besides, you can use this time to procrastinate on those pesky projects/issues that you'd just rather not deal with! At least, that's what I like to do...

And now for the filling - lightly steam one bunch of kale and one bunch of red chard, and then squeeze all the water out of it and chopped it somewhat coarsely. Then use a mandoline to very thinly slice about half a pound of lovely little fingerling potatoes (or whatever kind you like!). Then pour a liberal amount of olive oil into a non-stick skillet along w/ a couple fat cloves of minced garlic and lightly sautee the garlic for a few minutes before adding the potatoes. Cook the potatoes slowly over low to medium heat, adding more oil as necessary, till the potatoes are nice & tender. Since they're thinly sliced, this shouldn't take longer than about 25 minutes or so. Once they're done, put them in a bowl and combine w/ the steamed greens.

Now for your custard: in a separate bowl, beat 3 eggs w/ 3/4 cup half & half and grate some fresh nutmeg into it. Season w/ salt and freshly ground pepper.

Next, fill your partially pre-baked pie crust with the potatoes and greens. Then pour the custard mixture over it, using just enough to reach the top of the crust. Top it with some freshly grated parmesan and bake at 350 for about 25 minutes or until it's nicely set.

See? It wasn't that hard! You're the hit of the party! Everyone's coming to your house for brunch! Co-workers love you for sharing the leftovers! And you even managed to successfully avoid moving that box of crap out of the living room or having that dreaded conversation w/ that person who probably doesn't really give a shit anyway...so hooray for quiche!