Quiche Me, Baby

Cooking ideas can come from some pretty unexpected places. You just have to be ready. More on that in a moment.

Since recipes must be called something. I decided to name this week's offering, "Trinity Quiche," in honor of its main vegetable component, Louisiana's famed “trinity” of celery, onions and peppers. (It also has mushrooms. I think everyone who cooks has certain ingredients that seem to find their way into almost every recipe. For me it's mushrooms, for their nice taste, peculiar sort-of-soft-and-sort-of-crunchy texture, and their comically off-balance appearance that makes them the culinary world's version of penguins or, if you like, giraffes.) Adding to the "three" concept are its three cheeses which, combined, get along with each other wonderfully.

One oddity you'll find in this recipe is that the milk usually used in making quiche is replaced by a mixture of ingredients you'll probably recognize as a pancake batter. Here's where getting ideas from unexpected places comes in. Some years back I was looking for a way to improve the texture of the quiche filling I was using in those days. While dining at IHOP, I had an “aha!” moment when I read on the menu that they make their scrambled eggs fluffy by mixing in pancake batter. I tried that idea in the quiche filling and the rest, while not history, did give it the texture I'd been looking for.

Of course, if you prefer other combinations of vegetables, or different cheeses, great! One of the real beauties of quiche is that there's a lot of room to improvise and experiment. If there's something in your pantry, refrigerator or freezer you feel like making part of your quiche, go for it!

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees and blind bake a 9” pie crust. (If you’ve never baked a pie or quiche and aren’t sure how to blind bake a crust, just let me know and I’ll describe what to do. It’s basically getting the unfilled crust to a partially baked state (or, for a refrigerator pie, a fully baked state), then adding the filling and finishing the pie or quiche.) Prepare the other ingredients below during the blind baking, looking in on the crust now and then to prevent overcooking. When it is firm and starting to get “crusty,” take it out of the oven, use a brush to apply an egg wash made from one egg and one tablespoon of water, and set it aside.

While the crust is blind baking, sauté about 1-1/2 cups of mixed chopped celery, chopped pepper, julienned onion, and mushrooms. Season with salt and pepper to taste, but if you're using the mushrooms hold off adding the salt till you're almost done; mushrooms have a high water content and adding the salt early draws some of that water out and affects the final texture of the mushrooms. When the vegetables are cooked (but still have a firm texture), place them in a colander and rinse them well with cold water. This stops the cooking, and cools the vegetables so they won't prematurely cook the eggs in the filling when you mix everything together later. Set them aside.

Prepare the “pancake batter” by combining 3/4 cup all-purpose flour, 1-1/4 teaspoons baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1-1/2 tablespoons sugar, 1 egg-substitute egg,  5 ounces skim milk, and 1-1/2 tablespoons of melted butter substitute. Whisk until they form a batter.

In a large bowl, combine ¼ cup grated Swiss cheese, ¼ cup grated sharp cheddar cheese, 1/8 cup crumbled goat cheese, 3 egg substitute eggs, ½ cup skim milk, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and a pinch of fresh ground black pepper.  Add the cooked vegetables and the batter, whisk until combined, and fill the blind-baked crust.

Bake the quiche at 425 for 15 minutes. During this time, partially cook 2 slices of turkey bacon. (For example, if the 2 slices should be microwaved for two minutes to be fully cooked, microwave them for about one minute. They'll cook more later when you finish baking the quiche.) When the bacon slices are done, cut them into small pieces.

Reduce the oven temperature to 300.  Remove the quiche from the oven, and sprinkle the bacon pieces over the surface. By now the surface of the quiche filling should be firm enough so that the bacon pieces will stay on top without sinking.  Return the quiche to the 300 degree oven and cook for 30-35 minutes, until a knife inserted half-way between center and the edge comes out clean.  Let the quiche stand 10 minutes before serving. A salad or cup of tomato soup on the side goes very well with this.

As an added bonus, if you find you have some filling mix left over after making the quiche, I recommend saving it to make one of the best omelettes you'll ever have. And one of the easiest, since everything's already mixed in.

If you would like a notebook-ready, cookbook-style version of Trinity Quiche or any other recipe on this site, just let me know and I’ll get it right out to you. Ditto for any questions you may have about anything I’ve written that you'd like more information about.

See you next week! Till then, stay well, keep it about the food, and always remember to kiss the cook. ;-)