Anyone for Quiche?

Almost all of my recipes have some history or interesting background, the way I discover a recipe.The fact that i loved something at a hotel or bakery or friend and then madly searched, tried, tasted,repeat until I have perfected the recipe. Almost 5 years back, when I was working full time and held Project Manager designation (sigh!!), we were having lunch when my friend Maliha offered what she called Quiche and we all liked it. I then went after her to get me the recipe, which was from Betty Crocker book. Till to-date, I have the same photocopied pages and although I tried many versions (sorry but i come from IT background) and varieties, this is by far the best Quiche recipe. Crisp base and firm moist filling. Yummo!

You can have it for breakfast, lunch, dinner or late night craving. Bake in a large pie dish (i prefer glass, i read its science somewhere but conclusion is quiches are best baked in glass dishes) or individual muffin tray, it yields same great taste. The best thing I like about it is that you can toss anything in the filling, left over chicken, mince, veggies, corns, mushrooms,spinach etc. Its the only way my family eats broccoli - tree as my daughter calls it.
I have made two changes in this recipe, one, I pour filling on a pre-baked crust. If the crust is not previsouly baked, it absorbs all the liquid from the filling and makes it soggy rather than crisp. Second, I have not used 2 cups of cream (it was too much for me) as the recipe calls for, I have replaced it with 1 1/2 cups of full fat milk.


Crust:

Ingredients:

Butter 1/3 cup
Flour 1 cup
Salt 1/2 tsp
Cold water 2-3 tbsp for binding

Method:

• Seive flour, add salt.
• Cut butter into flour and rub with fingertips until it resembles bread crumbs.
• Bind pasrty with soft hands adding little water.
• Form a ball. Do not knead.
• Roll out pasrty with the hlp of little flour into around 10 inches diameter
• Put on pie dish and bake in a pre-heated oven for about 20 minutes until firm and light brown. Don't over brown or completely bake it because it will be baked again with filling.

Filling:

Ingredients:

Broccoli few flowers and stems cut up
Boiled cubed potato 1 small (optional)
Red and green pepper 1/2 cubed
Mushrroms few, sliced
Corns (optional)
Onion 1/3 cup finely chopped
Olive oil (extra virgin) 1 tbsp
Shreded Swiss cheese 1 cup (you can use cheddar cheese if Swiss is not available)
Eggs 4
Milk full fat 1 1/2 cup
Salt 3/4 tsp
Pepper 1/4 tsp
Crushed red pepper 1/8 tsp

Method:

• In a pan, place olive oil and onion. Fry for a few minutes.
• Add all vegetables. Stir fry for a few minutes.
• Mix egg, milk, cheese and seasonings separately. Beat until well combined with a whisk.
• Add in all vegetables to the egg mixture.
• Pour the mixture in the baked crust and return to oven for about 30-40 minutes at gas mark 4 until golden brown.
• Let it cool before cutting wedges.

Do let me know how it turned out.