The quichening

I probably should have named this particular post “A quichening” instead of “The quichening” since, really, I make quiches a lot and this is just the latest quichening effort to date. No, really. I make them a lot. A lot. Hell, I’ve easily made something like twenty whole pies since the beginning of 2009 and that number will probably double by year’s end, mark my words. They’re a simple enough thing to make, sure, but I don’t make them because of any sort of culinary difficulty rating they happen to have. No, I wind up making quiches an awful lot on the insistence of my friends.

(..and, by the way, it should be said that certain friends in particular are more insistent than others and that they absolutely know who they are and they shouldn’t try to act so scandalized that I make mention of this here because they’re not kidding anyone (although, I suppose, I can’t complain since it’s better to have people clamor for your cooking rather than not) and, wow, what a crazy run-on sentence this wound up being.)

Some of my friends never had quiche until I started making them so goddamn much and, since their introduction, have henceforth declared themselves the egg pie’s biggest fans. In fact, some of these friends are known to make plans involving my baking of quiches and generously inform me of the fact after the decision to have them made is, well, made. There’s sometimes token resistance on my part, sure, but, in the end, they pretty much always happen because, hey, quiches are tasty.

And, no, you didn’t misread that earlier – I affectionately refer to quiches as egg pies. I mean, that’s what quiches really are, aren’t they? They’re totally omelettes in a pie crust. And because they are exactly that, they are frickin’ awesome.

(The one pictured above is my signature quiche: a basil, Swiss cheese and spinach quiche.)

(This egg pie here is my breakfast sausage, mushroom onion and Monterey Jack cheese quiche. It’s my personal favorite of the kinds I make.)

So my work’s got this thing where breakfast is covered every Friday. It’s pretty neat. You go into the office that morning and there’s this spread laid out for the whole company, free for anyone to partake. The way it works is each month is pretty much “owned” by a department, the Fridays that make up that month are split up between members of that department, and these people get a stipend to pretty much plan and take care of brekkie for the company that day. And that’s all there is to it.

Last Friday was my and the saleguy’s Friday. I had been looking forward to getting a chance to rock out on the Friday breakfast dealie since my first day on the job and was thoroughly excited when the day finally came. While my co-conspirator took care of the fruit, mini-bagels and OJ part of the menu, I took care of my part: quiches. Four of them, in fact. Two of the spinach and basil ones and one of the sausage and one of the prosciutto ones.

It was great.

(Up thar be the prosciutto, asparagus and provolone quiche that I’ve only recently added to my repertoire of quichey offerings.)

That morning’s breakfast, though a lot of work (what with the procuring ingredients, the baking, the photodocumenting for this here blog and the lugging them all in a duffel bag via bus, subway and commuter rail train to the office), was actually really neat. After everyone sampled the eggy creations, praise and recognition abounded and, best of all, I was able to feed a lot of people and bring a smile to their faces. Totally worth it.

And like I mentioned earlier, yep, I photodocumented the process and it’s produced below. Photodocumenting while cooking in the kitchen ain’t easy, kids. Especially flying solo. The whole damn thing took about 4 hours to do and when I was finally done, I was pretty exhausted. That said, the following gets kind of long and kind of crazy since I’m doing four pies at the same time (go, go, gadget multitasking!), so the focus may wander a bit and meander even more. But you can pretty much follow it.

..I think.

(I hope.)

Here we have the three different kinds of cheeses I used for the quiche fillings: provolone, Swiss and Monterey Jack. There’s a fourth cheese I used (Parmesan), but that’s just used as a topping. As always, freshly grated works best.

And, of course, we have the eggs and the other dairy: butter (salted), both evaporated and whole milk a well as the aforementioned Parmesan cheese.

The majority of the veggies used were onions, mushrooms, asparagus, green bell pepper and fresh basil. Note how the mushrooms are already sliced. The green bell pepper and large onion are going to need to get chopped up. The asparagus and other onion can wait.

As for the basil, my very first go at making a quiche lo these many years ago involved dried basil (ya know, the one that comes in a small container?). I’ve since made the correction to use fresh instead because, uh, hello? Fresh? Fresh basil? Have you ever smelled fresh basil? If you haven’t, you fail and must go procure some right now.

Go on. I’ll be here when you get back.

Back already? See what I mean? Good. You may now continue with this article.

(Now, I suppose you could use dried basil if you lack the fresh variety but if given a choice, I’m sure you know which way I would urge you to go in.)

(Hint: not the dried variety.)

Here we have a lovely package of Prosciutto. In this particular case, three ounces of the stuff. Fortunately that’s all we need here.

As for crust, this is what I use. Sure, it comes out of a box and isn’t at all home-made. And, no, I don’t feel a lick of guilt over using this particular prepackaged product. Why? Because I love convenience and not only are these bad boys convenient as all hell, they’re yummy as all hell, too. But if you can make your own pie crust, hey, more power to you, mate. My focus here is on the filling and not the crust, after all, and these little guys have never steered me wrong.

The remaining ingredients: black pepper, pine nuts, minced garlic, frozen spinach, breakfast sausage and thyme. Freshly (and coarsely) ground black pepper is da bomb, folks. I can’t recommend it enough. And of course if you have fresh thyme, please use it over the dried stuff. Since thyme isn’t one of the primary flavors we’re going for here, it’s not too condemning a sin to go dry, though.

Oh, and if you’re wondering about the frozen spinach, yes, I mean the brick of green stuff you find in the frozen section at your local grocery. You’re obviously going to have to get this to thaw by either leaving it out or microwaving it. Either way, prepare the thawed spinach by squeezing it of its excess moisture.

One of the first steps for me (since I use roll-uppy premade pie crusts), is to take these guys out of their packaging to thaw and otherwise get to room temperature. Pretty necessary, yep.

The problem I ran into while doing this, of course, was the fact that room temperature at the time was disgustingly hot (Boston in August isn’t all that fun, no) and not at all room temperature-ish, really. So, I could have waited on taking them out to thaw. When I got to them later, the pie crust dough was threatening to stick to itself and meld into one solid cylinder shape. Not the most desirable outcome, no. So, yes, thaw at your own peril, folks.

Another thing to get started earlyish is the cooking of the breakfast sausages. Dump them in some water to get boiled and, ya know, cooked. It’ll take some time.

The quiche that’s going to get the primary focus first is the spinach and basil one since it’s a double-sized recipe and uses a lot of ingredients. That said, here’re six eggs and a whole can of evaporated milk getting bizzay (*chika bow wow*).

A passerby cup of milk wonders what’s going on and sees if it can’t join in because, hey, that’s how whole milk rolls, fools.

(Who knew that dairy could be so freakay?)

And then comes the beating, the senseless beating.

I did mine by hand but feel free to use a hand mixer or a standing mixer to beat your eggs and milk. The key thing here is to introduce a lot of air into your mixture to make for a fluffier quiche. Though I don’t indicate so later, I whisk each of the mixtures used for the four pies at every opportunity before they went into the oven. It makes a difference.

Since they’re going to take a while, let’s be smart and take this opportunity to toast some pine nuts on really low heat. They won’t need any oil; they provide their own.

Don’t try to short cut this process by putting them on higher heat. If you want to do this right, you do it on low and you do it for a long while, shaking them around to toast them on all sides. Otherwise, these suckers burn fast and you’ll wind up with pine nuts you can’t use and irritated for having to do it all over again. Possibly twice, even. And then you wind up like me.

Don’t be like me. Be smart.

Ever chiffonade basil? No? Chiffonading (if that is even a word) is really just a fancy way of saying ‘cut into fine shreds’. It’s easy. Stack a bunch of leaves together and roll them up as tightly as you can. (Here you’ll see that they’re not rolled up very tightly at all because, hey, I’m using my other hand to hold the camera.) And then, with a sharp knife, just slice, slice, slice.

Et voila.. chiffonade. Go brag to your neighbors that you know how to chiffonade stuff now. The fact that it sounds so French will no doubt impress them and when they ask what it means, you can get all haughty and ask in disdain, “You mean you really don’t know?“.

Isn’t cooking fun?

Throw the impressively shredded (in French, no less) basil into the egg mixture along with some black pepper and mix it all together.

Then throw in the Swiss cheese. As this is a double-portion size, that’ll be two cups of shredded Swiss. Mix again.

Hey, look! Toasted pine nuts! Way to go, smarty!

..and yah, those go in, too. Mix some more.

Now get yourself a large pan. Over medium heat, melt half a stick of butter. Yes, half. No, you can’t skimp on this and don’t even think about using margarine, you big baby. Half.

Throw in the minced garlic and sauté until they get fragrant. And they will.

Next, throw in the chopped green bell pepper and onion. Sauté until they get softened a bit and the onion gets kind of transparent.

Now we add in the spinach. Sauté some more and allow to cook to the point that the spinach is integrated into the mix.

Then add the whole lot into the eggy, basil, cheese, milk and pine nutty mixture.

Mix! Now set this aside for now since there’s nothing more to do with this quiche for now.

We move on to the other two egg pie fillings. Throw in three eggs in each of two other bowls.

To each mixture, add half a can of evaporated milk and half a cup of whole milk. Beat them like in the previous quiche mixture.

Preparing the remaining vegetables, cut up the asparagus into half-inch bits and slice up the onion thinly. The thickness of the asparagus will impact its cooking time since you want to make sure that these stalks aren’t hard in the finished quiche. The onions being thinned will make their caramelization easier to manage.

And let’s not forget about the breakfast sausage. After these guys are boiled and cooked thoroughly, allow them to cool.

Then chop them up into smaller-than-bite-sized bits.

In another pan, heat up a quarter stick of butter.

Add some garlic like before and sauté until fragrant.

Make sure the heat is on medium and throw in the onions. Caramelizing takes a while, so be patient.

In the meantime, let’s chop up some prosciutto!

After giving the onions some time to cook, we’ll throw in the sausage since they’re going to need to brown a bit, too. Every now and then stir the mixture a bit as you’re cooking to prevent burning.

So while that all is happening, let’s start in on the other quiche. And to do that, we heat up another quarter stick of butter. (Don’t act so surprised.)

In this new pan, we throw in the asparagus and sauté until it starts to soften.

Back at the ranch.. er, back to the other pan with the sausage and soon-to-be caramelized onion, we add in the mushrooms.

Do note that the mushrooms will sop up whatever moisture is in the pan for the first several minutes. They’re shifty like that. After a while, they will start to release the liquid they’ve absorbed. They’re capricious like that. If everything works out, this should mostly coincide with the caramelizing of the onion. If not, keep on cooking until the onions are a bit more caramelized, the sausage bits are browned and the mushrooms are softened and moist.

Over at one of the egg mixtures, mix in the Monterey Jack cheese, resisting the urge to just grab a handful of the cheese and eating it right there. Be strong.

To this egg, milk and Monterey Jack cheese mix, add the contents of the pan with the onions, mushroom and sausage.

Give the whole lot a thorough stirring. Then set it aside.

When the asparagus cooking in the remaining pan is a bit softened and noticeably greener, add in the chopped prosciutto. Sprinkle with black pepper as if you’re peppering some bacon.

Note: this means quite a bit of pepper if you’re a fan.

Add in the thyme, too!

At the remaining bowl of eggy milkness, add the provolone and mix well.

Continue to cook the meat and asparagus until the prosciutto becomes more vivid in color and the asparagus is softened a bit. Since this will be thrown into the oven and cooked for almost an hour, the asparagus doesn’t need to be 100% softened if you’re really that impatient.

Unsurprisingly, this goes into its respective egg mixture. And mixed, of course.

And, oh yah, pie crusts! Um.. yah. Prepare them as necessary. For me, this meant unrolling the pie crust dough and preventing it from being one solid mass of uncooperative dough in the New England heat and humidity. I don’t suggest recreating those conditions.

Ladle the quiche mixtures into their respective pie shells and put them in the oven at 350° for 40-45 minutes.

When the middles of the pies are set and they’re lightly browned, they’re ready to go. Allow them 10-20 minutes to cool and sprinkle Parmesan on them. Enjoy the hell out of them.

Basil, Swiss Cheese and Spinach Quiche (x2)

what you’ll need

• 1/4 c salted butter (half a stick) or 1/4 c unsalted butter and 1 T of salt
• 1 green bell pepper (diced)
• 1 medium onion (chopped)
• 2 cloves of garlic (minced, crushed, whatever)
• 1 (10-oz.) package chopped frozen spinach
  (thawed, well drained, and squeezed of its excess moisture)
• 1/4 c – 1/2 c of fresh basil, shredded (or 2-3 T crushed dried basil)
• 2 c shredded Swiss cheese
• lotsa Parmesan cheese
• some ground black pepper
• 2 (9-in.) unbaked pie crusts
• 1/4 c toasted pine nuts (if you feel like it)
• 6 eggs
• 1 (12-oz.) can evaporated milk
• 1 c milk

what to do:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Egg Mixture:
   In a large mixing bowl, beat eggs, evaporated milk and milk until well combined. It is recommended that you use a hand mixer on the highest setting for this but a whisk and some good ole elbow grease works the same. Just remember that the more air you get into the mixture, the fluffier it’ll be. Makes sense, eh? Set aside.
3. Melt butter in a large skillet. Sauté garlic until fragrant. Add onion and green bell pepper. Cook until tender.
4. Stir in spinach and sauté some more.
5. Now stir in the spinach mixture, basil, Swiss cheese and the pine nuts (if you got any) into the egg mixture.
6. Divide, pour, or whatever you need to do to the mixture between the two pie crusts.
7. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes or until centers are just set.
8. Allow to cool for 10-20 minutes. Sprinkle tops with some Parmesan cheese. Enjoy.

Breakfast Sausage, Caramelized Onion, Mushroom and Monterey Jack Cheese Quiche

what you’ll need

• 1/8 c salted butter (a quarter-stick) or 1/8 c unsalted butter and 1/2 T of salt
• 1 cup of sliced mushrooms
• 1 small onion (sliced into thin strips)
• 1 clove of garlic (minced, crushed, whatever)
• 6-8 links of lightly cooked breakfast sausage, chopped
• 1 c shredded Monterey Jack cheese
• lotsa Parmesan cheese
• some ground black pepper
• 1 (9-in.) unbaked pie crusts
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 can (6 oz.) evaporated milk
• 1/2 c milk

what to do:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Egg Mixture:
   (same as above.)
3. Melt butter in a large skillet. Sauté garlic until fragrant. Add onion and begin caramelizing.
4. Add sausage and allow to brown, continuing to caramelize onion.
5. Add mushrooms and continue to sauté until the mushrooms are softened and cooked.
6. Now stir in the sausage mixture and Monterey Jack cheese into the egg mixture.
7. Pour the mixture into a waiting pie crust.
8. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes or until centers are just set.
9. Allow to cool for 10-20 minutes. Sprinkle tops with some Parmesan cheese. Enjoy.

Prosciutto, Asparagus and Provolone Quiche

what you’ll need

• 1/8 c salted butter (a quarter-stick) or 1/8 c unsalted butter and 1/2 T of salt
• 1 cup of chopped asparagus
• 3 oz prosciutto (diced)
• 1 c shredded Provolone cheese
• lotsa Parmesan cheese
• 2 T thyme
• some ground black pepper
• 1 (9-in.) unbaked pie crusts
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 can (6 oz.) evaporated milk
• 1/2 c milk

what to do:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Egg Mixture:
   (same as above.)
3. Melt butter in a large skillet. Sauté asparagus until it begins to soften and gets more vibrant in color.
4. Add prosciutto and allow to brown slightly, peppering the meat and adding thyme.
5. Continue to cook until asparagus is suitably softened.
6. Add meat mixture and provolone cheese into the egg mixture.
7. Pour the mixture into a waiting pie crust.
8. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes or until centers are just set.
9. Allow to cool for 10-20 minutes. Sprinkle tops with some Parmesan cheese. Enjoy.