Quiche does serve 5 normal people, 4 hungry people and 1 gluttonous individual.
Ingredients:
Pastry:
4 ounces plain flour
2 ounces unsalted butter
pinch of salt
enough water to combine
Filling:
One red pepper
3 eggs
150 ml of milk
half a pack of feta cheese (about 100 grams ish)
Method:
1) If, like me, you find sleep elusive, I made my pastry first thing in the morning. Pastry is dead easy - rub in the butter (should be cold and just out the fridge) and flour until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
2) Add enough water to combine to a short (i.e. crumbly ish) dough. Try not to touch the pastry with your hands as this magically warms the pastry up and makes it less crumbly. I normally combine my pastry with a knife instead. Wrap this dough in cling film and leave in the fridge for at least an hour (or the whole working day as I did).
3) When ready to start assembly, preheat the oven to about 200 degrees.
4) Roll out the pastry super duper thin, and carefully pick up and place over the loose bottomed flan tin. Using a scrap of pastry rolled into a ball, press the pastry into the fluting so that it sits flush to the bottom and the sides. Liberally stab the base of the pastry case with a fork to ensure maximum crispiness.
5) Line the pastry with parchment paper and baking beans, trim off any excess pastry (leave about an inch around the top to allow for shrinkage) and blind bake for 20 minutes. You can collect any pastry offcuts, wrap in cling film and freeze to use at a later date for some delicious jam tarts.
6) Whilst the case is blind baking, chop up the red pepper and put in the oven to roast.
7) Beat the eggs with a liberal grinding of black pepper, the milk and crumble in the feta cheese to this mix too.
8) After 20 minutes of blind baking, remove the case (and actually the pepper can come out of the oven now too) from the oven. Take out the baking beans and parchment. The case should smell buttery and delicious and be a good golden colour.
9) Arrange the pepper slithers on the base of the case in what Mary Berry would consider an "attractive" manner, then pour over the egg, milk and feta mix.
10) Put back in the oven and cook for a further 20-30 minutes, until the filling in the middle is set with a slight wobble. Using a sharp knife, trim the pastry top so it is flush with the tin.
11) Top tip for getting the quiche out of the loose bottomed flan tin is to get something like a jar or a tin, place the flan tin on the top and watch the sides of the flan tin fall away, whilst you are free to serve your quiche on a wooden board or something equally middle class.
12) We served this quiche with a salad of mixed leaves, cucumber, spring onion, tomato and avocado, which was delicious and thoroughly recommended.
Pastry is super easy to make, not to mention therapeutic and I have to say, making a quiche is nowhere near as challenging as I had always thought it would be. Plus, I now have a stash of pastry in the freezer for when my sweet tooth calls me... I definitely will be experimenting with more quiche related baking in the future. Pea and goats cheese? Spinach and ricotta? Might have to make quiche tonight at this rate...