The Theory of the Sweet Science
The Theory of the Sweet Science
Quiche is usually a winner for everyone and given the egg and dairy content they tend to be a good source of protein for athletes. You can buy the base for these but you don’t really know the fat content, so it’s best just to make one up yourself. This quiche recipe is one that's easy to master and will serve you well over time.
There's two parts to this; the base or casing and the filling.
The recipe for the base has only 4 basic ingredients so it’s very, very simple, the work involved in this whole thing is rolling it out properly and par cooking it.
Preheat your oven to 180 degrees. Hopefully you’ve got a food processor like the one pictured below. Just use the cutting blade to mix this up, no need to use any other. If you don’t have a machine like this you’ll have to do it by hand.
1. Put your plain flour in the processor along with the margarine or butter and the egg yolk and mix it up on high speed. Make sure it all gets mixed together and shake the machine if you have to – to get the ingredients to fall onto the mixing blade – this will take about 10 seconds.
2. Now is the tricky part, you have to add the cold water with the blade running, you’ll only need about 2 table spoons, maybe 3-4 it just depends on the day. What you’ll be looking for is the dough coming together but it will still be loose enough to fall from the sides of the container onto the blade. Again pick up the machine and shake it to get it all to mix properly.
3. Take the dough out of the machine form it into a ball and then break it up into 5-6 parts and put it back into the machine for the final mixing.
4. If you have the right amount of water in the mix you’ll see the blade cut the dough up and it’ll form little ball bearing type shapes out of the dough.
Note: If it’s still too dry add a tiny amount of water. Remember though, you can add water but you can’t take it out - so be careful.
5. When you’re happy with how it looks roll it up into a ball and wrap the dough up in plastic wrap and place it the fridge for about ½ hour.
6. Now roll it out on a clean bench top. You want it to fit a quiche dish that’s about 2 cm deep by about 25cm wide. Lightly grease the quiche dish before you put the pastry on it for cooking.
Tip: to sterilise dish cloths for wiping your bench down, rinse the dish cloth under fresh water then put it in the microwave oven for 2 minutes.
7. So keep rolling the dough until it fits and falls over the edge. When you put it into the dish make sure you get all the air pockets out of it otherwise they’ll rise when you par cook it and won’t leave any room for the filling. Trim the edges up with a knife.
8. Put it in the oven and leave it par cook it until the edges are hardened and slightly golden. About 15 minutes or so.
9. Take it out of the oven and let it cool.
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Line the bottom of the base with basil leaves and a ¼ cup of grated cheese and feta cheese. Throw in your diced bacon and ¼ cup of mushrooms and tomatoes. Repeat the layer again. Mix eggs and milk together in a separate bowl then pour it on top. Put it in the oven until it sets - will probably take about 40 minutes; just keep an eye on it.
