Learning to make a quiche crust from scratch is a really useful skill, and simpler than you might think. With just butter and flour and a few minutes of time, you can quickly create a crust for either savoury or sweet dishes and whip up some filling that can make either a large quiche or a few mini-quiches to satisfy picky family members or pack as lunches. Invited to do a participatory cooking class for The Florentine’s TF Together line-up of events, I opted to teach how to make quiche with leftovers, as this is a practical and economical recipe that’s perfect for cooking on a budget and reducing food waste.
In my home, we’ve got a lot of different tastes. My wife and one daughter are vegetarian, while the rest of us are not. And of course, there’s someone who doesn’t like onions, others who don’t like zucchini… To meet everyone’s preferences, I make one large quiche, and then use a muffin tin to make small quiches with different fillings, which is also a good way to use up a few different vegetables I have in the fridge.
You’ll need flour, butter, eggs and milk for this recipe, as well as some vegetables – whatever you have in your fridge. In terms of flour, I prefer to mix 00 white flour with whole wheat flour, 50-50. I like the rustic texture this creates, and I find it more flavourful than just white flour. I blend that with a 60 per cent ratio of butter, so I’ll use 200 grams of flour and 120 grams of butter to make my quiche crust, but knowing the ratio, you can make more or less depending on your needs. If I want to make this into a sweet pie, I’ll add about a tablespoon of sugar – either white or brown sugar depending on the flour used.
The ratio of the filling is also really important. For me, the perfect ratio is 50-50 eggs to milk. This is a personal preference; I find that more eggs make it too much like an omelette, and more milk doesn’t have the right texture. I usually grate some cheese into the egg mixture – whatever I have around the house – as well as season it well with salt and pepper.
You can make your quiche plain, or add a filling. One of my favourites is leeks, which I chop and cook in butter until they are soft. Spinach or other blanched greens make great fillings, as do onions, zucchini, mushrooms, red pepper, potatoes… It’s really flexible, which is the point of this recipe.
Serve quiche with salad and potatoes for a complete meal | Ph. Linda Martinez
Quiche ingredients
For the crust
- 100 g “00” flour
- 100 g wholewheat flour
- 120 g butter (cold)
- some chilled water
- pinch of salt
For the filling
- 2 or 3 eggs
- milk in equal part to eggs
- grated parmesan or other cheese
- cooked vegetables
Quiche recipe instructions
- To make dough. Measure out flour (mixed white and wholewheat if you wish) into a bowl and add a pinch of salt.
- Cut in butter with a knife, then blend with your hands, taking care to work it as little as possible.
- Add some cold water, about 1-2 tablespoons, so that you’re able to form a ball.
- Wrap the dough and put it in the fridge to chill at least 15 minutes
- To make filling. In a bowl, mix eggs and milk in equal portions (you can use a scale to weigh the eggs if you wish to be precise). Grate in some cheese. Salt and pepper.
- Add any cooked vegetables to the egg mixture.
- Take the dough out of the fridge and place on a floured surface, roll out and transfer to a buttered baking dish. For the mini-quiches in muffin containers, butter the number of cups you will use, and press the dough into the container with your fingers. Poke crust with fork (bottom and sides)
- Pour the egg and vegetable liquid into your receptacle.
- Bake until brown on top at 180 degrees Celsius (25-35 minutes depending on size of container).
