I was fascinated to read in The Age, Epicure section recently, a list detailing Australia’s top twenty recipes searched on Google. Not so dissimilar to those clicked by American cooks, the repertoire included such stodge and tradition as Banana Bread, Meat Loaf, Cheese Cake, Pumpkin Soup, Anzac Biscuits and surprisingly, on both lists, Quiche.

The variations of the composition of this wonderful tart when I have googled ‘Quiche’ have been significant.

Recipes abound with the complicated inclusion of onion, cheese and even flour.

For the record, according to the woman I most often rely upon, Elizabeth David, since the sixteenth century, the time honoured ingredients for the filling of Quiche Lorraine are simply smoked bacon, cream, eggs and the seasonings of salt and pepper and nutmeg.

Undoubtedly most people have a personal preference as to whether or not to use a prepared pastry or make their own. For years I relied upon the frozen variety with routinely disappointing results.

Subsequently I watched a video of Delia Smiths Home Baking, series, circa 1979 or thereabouts. In the episode on Quiche, she sets about to show viewers how to make a short crust pastry, the details of which had previously escaped me.

Armed with renewed confidence when next preparing to make a quiche and discovering only the most nondescript scraps of pastry sheets in the freezer – I decided to have a go making my own. I tell you, it took about five minutes and though a little rough on the first go, I am now pretty proficient at it. It is immensely satisfying to do, takes no time at all and remains a fundamental element of the dish.

Delia offers two important distinctions when making short crust pastry, marginally short of the ‘golden rules’ she otherwise likes to emphasise.

The first is to always use a metal flan tin with a removable base. The attractive ceramic collection I have acquired over the years apparently produce a significantly inferior result.

The second distinction is to place your metal flan dish on a metal tray in the oven, to ensure an equal distribution of heat on the base, which cannot be achieved on an oven rack.

The recipe that follows has been adapted from Elizabeth David’s French Provincial Cookbook, ‘the plain cream and egg and bacon variety’.

Basically you need to prepare a pastry, which needs to rest for about 2 hours before you can cook it. The bacon needs to be cooked, so that the fat runs from it. This is then arranged on the cooked pastry base and the cream and eggs poured over; this mixture then sets in a moderately heated oven.

Served with a salad it makes a perfect light luncheon or supper dish. The Lorrainers use to eat it for breakfast I believe, and why not, I ask?

Equipment:

• A 20cm (8 inch) metal flan tin with a removable base
• flour sifter or fine metal strainer
• a small fry pan
• a basting brush

Ingredients

For the pastry

• 120g plain flour, sifted
• 60g butter, cut into little pieces
• 1 egg
• Salt
• A little water

For the filling

• 6 thin rashers of streaky bacon cut into 2.5cm wide strips
• 280 ml double cream
• 4 large eggs: beaten well: 3 yolks and 1 whole egg (retain some egg white to brush on the pastry)
• Salt and pepper seasoning
• A grating of nutmeg

Method

For the Pastry

• Sift the flour onto a clean bench top and crumble the butter into it, adding a good pinch of salt
• Break in the egg and mix the dough lightly with your fingers
• Add enough water (2 – 4 tablespoons) to make the dough soft but it must remain firm enough to come away clean from the bowl or board. If you have used a large egg, you may not need any water
• Knead the dough into a ball, incorporating more flour or water as necessary
• Wrap the dough into baking paper or other greaseproof paper, and leave it for 2 hours to rest. Any longer than 2 hours, pop it into the fridge.
• When you are ready to use it, preheat the oven to 200c
• Roll out the pastry very thin and line the greased flan tin with it. Fold small amounts of excess pastry in on itself to reinforce the wall of the shell. Trim the edges and prick the surface of the pastry with a fork.
• Place the pastry shell into the oven for 10 minutes
• Remove from the oven and brush the pastry shell with beaten egg white, to fill the holes created by the fork.
• Cook for a further 5 minutes

For the filling

• Cook the bacon in a frying pan over medium heat for a minute, just so that the some of the fat runs.
• Arrange the bacon in circles on the pastry
• Mix the cream with the egg and egg yolks in a bowl and season well with salt and pepper (taking into account the saltiness of the bacon) and a grating of nutmeg
• Pour this mixture over the bacon and transfer immediately to the oven. Place on a rack in the centre of the oven and cook for 20 minutes at 200c
• Reduce the temperature to 180c and cook for a further 10 minutes.
• By this time the filling should be puffing up almost like a soufflé and will be golden brown. Remove it from the oven and let it rest for a minute or two before serving, this will make it easier to cut, though don’t wait for it to collapse.

+ 1

+ 1