Vegetable Quiche with Homemade Crust (Includes a Pesach version!)

Quiche, in all its beauty! So much to say, but so little time.

Quiche was my first “real dish”. It brought me from being a very, very amateur cook at 20 years-old first learning the basic steps of cooking from Alton Brown’s show “Good Eats”   (which at the time, before Youtube, my brother sent me on a few DVDs) to a more confident cook. Meaning, one who would finally invite friends over to taste what I had made without being embarrassed and worried it would be a total disaster.

I first learned to make a quiche from my British friend Lorena’s mom (who was and still is a very cool British Airways stewardess) in the days I was a student at the University of Manchester.  After University ended for the regular students, and as I was writing my masters dissertation, I would regularly visit her London home and stay a few nights. Her mom one afternoon pulled out a quiche recipe from the newspaper and I eagerly watched her bake the crust and the filling (with asparagus) and shyly asked for the recipe. That might have been the first time I asked someone for a recipe.

For the years following I regularly experimented with quiche at home, for friends and for my family, though I wasn’t very successful with the crust in the beginning. I would buy those ready made crusts and would experiment with various vegetables and cheeses for the best combinations.

Now fast forward many years later to Israel, where you don’t have those pre-made pie crusts readily available.  And although there is a frozen dough, it is very expensive and parve (non-dairy). I must have my quiche crust with real butter, what can I say!

I will always remember the first time I made the crust myself. (By this time I found an easier recipe). It was the evening I gave birth to Ovadia, 6 years ago in January 2014! The crust came out wonderful and it was so much easier than I thought. I am sure “nesting” had something to do with it 🙂 Rami and I ate half the quiche that night, and the rest is history.

In last two years I use only glass pie shells, so the quiche crust always cuts out smooth without sticking and saves a lot of scrubbing time.

Like I mentioned earlier, this quiche is extremely versatile. I have started using more local and seasonal vegetables/cheeses like fennel and chard greens, and Bulgarian cheese but of course use any vegetable and cheese combination you like. You can also make a few crusts at a time and freeze them which is always a nice treat to have ready to go.

And don’t forget to thank me on Pesach when you have an amazing quiche to share with your family and friends! The dough comes out great, you will be really surprised.

Ingredients:

For the crust:

• 1 cup + 2tbsp flour (200 grams)
• 100 grams unsalted butter, frozen
• 1/4tsp baking powder
• 1 beaten egg
• Pinch of salt

Pesach version:

• 1/2 cup + 1tbsp matzah flour
• 1/2 cup + 1tbsp potato flour
• 100 grams unsalted butter, frozen
• 1/4tsp baking powder
• 1 beaten egg
• Pinch of salt

Quiche Filling:

• 2-3 cups sautéd vegetables of your choice (Ideas: mushrooms, onions, leeks, fennel, spinach, etc)
• Roughly a 1/2 cup cheese of your choice (cheese in this quiche optional, but recommended!)
• 250ml heavy cream, in Israel this is one package of “shement l’bishul 15%”
• 1 egg
• 2 egg yolks
• salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:

Crust: (Same steps for both the regular and Pesach version)

1. Freeze your butter for at least an hour before using! Do not skip this step!
2. Mix flour, salt and baking powder together.
3. Cut up butter into small cubes and add into flour mix.
4. Mix the butter into the flour mix with your fingertips until the mixture resembles coarse sand.
5. Add in the beaten egg and bring the dough together into a ball with your hands. You can add a tiny bit of cold water if you feel the dough needs to soften to get together. (You can freeze the dough at this point to use at a later date).
6. Roll it out about 1/2″ thick. It doesn’t need to be an even circle, just try to keep the thickness more or less even.
7. Transfer to a greased pie dish and press the dough down along bottom and high up on the sides. If you have a gap anywhere, you can patch it up with extra dough.
8. Pre-bake the crust until you see a light brown color forming (for about 10-12 minutes) in a 350F / 180C oven.

*The picture on the left is the Pesach Crust (already baked) and the right picture is the regular crust before baking.

Filling

• Pre-heat the oven to 350F / 180C.

1. Sauté the vegetables of your choice and let them cool slightly.
2. The first layer in your quiche should always be the vegetable layer, so spread them around the bottom of your pie crust.
3. *Optional. Add whatever cheese you fancy (Ideas: Bulgarian, Feta, Parmesan, Roquefort, Edam (Israeli Yellow Cheese), etc. The list is endless and feel free to mix).
4. Mix in a medium-sized bowl the egg, egg yolks and cream together with salt and pepper.
5. Top off the crust with the egg and cream mixture until it almost reaches to the top of the crust.
6. Bake roughly 30-35 minutes until the top turns golden brown and crust turns golden.

Happy to hear what kind of amazing quiche combinations you make, so please be in touch in the comments section! If you were wondering, the seeds in the left picture are Nigella seeds which I sometimes add to my quiche for an additional nutty flavor.

And P.S., I have an easy, baked cheesecake recipe if you are looking for an addition to your Shavuot meal.

Enjoy and Happy Shavuot!