Such a good recipe to have up your sleeve for weekend lunches or to take on a family picnic! This is a special version of the traditional Quiche Lorraine, I hope you enjoy it.
All the classic flavours of a quiche combined into a lovely simple homemade pastry – so easy – but don’t worry you can buy store bought if you like! Below I will share with you both the technique for creating the pastry from just 4 ingredients and how I layer my quiches to ensure all the goodness is in every bite!
I have partnered with Countdown to share this recipe in celebration of their Select Free Range eggs now being stamped with a unique code which identifies where they come from and a little bit more about the farm itself.
I traced mine and found out they were from Waianakarua Free Range Farm in North Otago. This is a great step forward for Countdown and helps people become a bit more informed about where their produce comes from. Countdown itself is still committed to phasing out caged eggs entirely by 2024 in the North Island and 2025 in the South.
So I wanted to share a special dish where these lovely fresh eggs can shine and what better way than a quiche! This quiche is a little bit luxury as it has a few extra steps to ensure a lovely creamy filling on a crisp light base. But it really is easy, just allow some time for the chilling, par-cooking and cooking parts!
I have par baked the base for this recipe, using the blind baking technique, for those of you who have not done this before it is super simple, you do not need any fancy ingredients just some tin foil and rice will do the trick. Although you can buy beads, lentils or weights as well.
The crust is a lovely simple recipe, only 4 ingredients of flour, cold butter, ice cold water and apple cider vinegar. The last ingredient giving it some extra crunch and taste. You will need a food processor to make this pastry, so if you do not have one then feel free to use a ready made short pastry from Countdown – they had them for $2 across a range of brands when I was there the other day.
When preparing the pastry there are a few steps, but it is worth it if you have the time and would like to try! Everything is so simple, I will give step by step instructions below. You will want to allow an hour before you can begin to bake, this allows time to prepare the pastry, which only takes a few minutes, chill the dough for 30 minutes, roll and shape the pastry into the pie dish, chill for a further 20 minutes. Then you are ready to bake, for this I used tin foil and half fill the pie shell with rice as that is what I had on hand. In a hot oven you will bake it for 12 minutes, then reduce the heat to cook the quiche filling for a further 40-50 minutes. Well worth the wait!
The filling is a lovely mix of simple ingredients, you will need to prepare while the base cooks. Simply brown some bacon, then in the same pan sweat some leeks and onion until translucent. Then mix together your free range eggs, cream and milk mixture and layer the filling as I suggest below. This way the ingredients are fully spread throughout the quiche! I love to layer ingredients in these sorts of recipes such as I did here in these Mini Crustless Quiches
So onto the recipe, I hope you enjoy it, a good tip is quiche is best served warm but not hot. So allow it to cool right down before serving, up to an hour.
Quiche Lorraine
A delicious creamy quiche with bacon, leak and onion in a lovely crisp pastry base. You will love it!
Ingredients
Base
- 1 1/4 Cups Plain White Flour, 162 grams
- 115 grams Butter, cold, cubed
- 3 1/2 Tablespoons Ice Cold Water, 52mls
- 1/2 Tablespoon Apple Cider Vinegar, 7.5mls
- 1/4 teaspoon Salt
Filling
- 8 Bacon Rashers, diced 2cm
- 1/2 Cup Leaks, white and light parts only, finely sliced, 45 grams
- 1/2 Cup Onion, finely diced, 75 grams
- 3 Eggs
- 2 Egg Yolks
- 1 Cup Cream, 250 mls
- 3/4 Cup Milk, 188 mls
- 1 1/2 Cups Cheese, Grated, strong such as tasty or gruyere, 135 grams
- 1/2 teaspoon Thyme, dried or 1 teaspoon fresh
- Salt & Pepper to season
Instructions
- To prepare the base you will need a food processor
- Add the flour and the cubed cold butter to the food processor and pulse 10 times
- Combine the ice cold water and the cider vinegar and add half to the flour mixture and pulse 5 times, then add the remaining water mixture and pulse until the pastry begins to come together.
- Stop and turn out onto a wooden board.
- Bring the pastry together and create a large ball, add this to some plastic wrap and form a flat round disk.
- Chill the dough for 30 minutes
- Preheat the oven to 225C
- Use a deep pie dish
- On a floured surface with a floured rolling pin roll the dough to the correct size to fit the base and sides of the pie dish, nice and thin.
- Using the rolling pin transfer the dough to the pie dish and gently press into place. Trim the edge and pinch the edges or use a fork to create a nice finish.
- Add tin foil to the pie dish in the shape of the pastry and then add rice evenly until half way full.
- Bake for 12 minutes, then remove from the oven and reduce the heat to 165C
- Carefully remove the tin foil and rice and set aside.
- In a saucepan, add olive oil and cook the diced bacon until brown and just starting to go crispy
- Remove the bacon once cooked and remove half of the remaining oil from the pan, then add the diced onion and leek and cook until it begins to soften and become translucent. Remove from the pan and set aside
- In a large bowl add the eggs, egg yolks, cream, milk, thyme and season with salt & pepper, whisk together well
- Add half the bacon, onion and leek mixture and cheese to the bottom of the pie crust
- Carefully pour over the egg mixture evenly over the pie crust
- Sprinkle over this the remaining bacon, onion and leek and cheese, then bake for 40-50 minutes at 165C
- You can test if the quiche is done by jiggling it, it should have a little jiggle without being too soft in the middle. Your quiche should be looking set right the way through and beginning to go golden brown
- Remove from the oven and allow to cool up to an hour, quiche is best served warm not hot so it holds its shape.
- You can store in the fridge for a day or so and reheat or eat cold.
Notes
Use a Food Processor
Make sure the Butter and Water is Cold
You will need to allow time to chill the dough twice and blind bake
Use a deep pie dish as this makes a lot of filling
Serve Quiche warm, not hot to allow to set.
A huge thank you to Countdown for partnering with me on this recipe, be sure to keep an eye out for Countdowns Select Free Range eggs and other own brand products. Often they are much cheaper than other brands, and in almost all cases they do the exact same job just as well if not better! Everything here from the plastic wrap, tin foil, cream and cheese! Love me a bargain!
Happy Baking!
Anna
Monica fisher says
This is fab quiche it’s so creamy I put ham in but bacon would of been better didn’t have any .
Definitely will be using this again.good size to for family.
justamumnz says
So glad you enjoyed it