Quiche (Kish) Me.
Michelle Phetlhe | Monday May 10, 2021 16:22
You can load it up with veggies, meat or opt to keep it simple. You can make it with a crust or it can be crustless. This is usually determined by whether one has pastry, the time to blind bake it, or whether you’re looking for a light or more filling meal. NB: Quiche can be very filling, even more so with pastry.
Quiche is a French tart consisting of pastry crust filled with savoury custard and pieces of cheese, meat, seafood or vegetables.
The best-known variant is quiche Lorraine, which includes lardons or bacon. Quiche can be served hot or cold. This dish has worldwide popularity, so when you prepare it you definitely feel like an International master chef…at least I do.
In over 7 months at Chellzkitchen Classes, we have made quiche in perhaps 3 classes.
In the 1st class everyone made it with a crust, we all blind baked our pastry then went on to load up the cheese, mushrooms, meats, spinach, bell peppers, onions, bacon etc all the different toppings were laid out for each individual to personalise their quiche.
Baking blind (sometimes called pre-baking) is the process of baking a pie crust or other pastry without the filling. Blind baking a pie crust is necessary when it is to be filled with an unbaked filling.
In the 2nd class that we made the dish, one of the cooks did not eat eggs, so we did our research and discovered that tofu was an excellent substitute.
We went on to try out the recipe at home before presenting the menu in class. It was great to cook outside of my comfort zone as well as getting an opportunity to familiarise myself with tofu. She had eaten tofu before but never prepared it herself, so this was a real learning and proud moment in the kitchen. Quiche featured in more than one class because of its diversity, it works for breakfast, lunch or dinner depending what you serve it along side.
In what must have been the 3rd occasion that we made this dish, I was forced to prepare a crustless quiche. What had happened was.....I bought the exact amount of puff pastry needed for the day. Little did I know, I was going to place the top shelf too close to the oven grills and completely char the crusts on the top layer while blind baking.
After two minuets of disarray, I was able to collect myself and make a plan for the other individual who’s crust didn’t make it out alive alongside my own. I continued to set my eyes on the crustless quiche, of which I had never made before. Note by: (Use the middle shelf in the oven).
This went to show how baking is such a precise art. Ga o itatlhele hela, you really can’t wing the process. Dealing with the oven requires focus and awareness at all times. We may have burnt the crust, but we definitely learnt a lesson in baking.
My whole family loves quiche at any time of the day.
I enjoy making it because it is technically a stress free dish. The overall time to make it may seem long, however while blind baking one can prep different fillings.
When it comes to the cooking time, you merely have to slide it into the oven and not harass it, and perhaps do the toothpick test after 25mins. This provides time for you to clean up, relax with a book or catch up to your weekly Tv show while you listen out for the timer.