S2E2 Signature: Quiche
Finally, it's a savoury bake again. This week's signature challenge is quiche, which is great because it means that I can use up all the leftover egg whites in my fridge!
My inspiration for this quiche came from one of the winners of the Great British Bake-Off, Nancy Birtwhistle. A few weeks back, she posted pictures of a zucchini quiche that she had made with rolled-up slices of zucchini as decoration. I thought that it looked very cool and unique so I decided to give it a go. This bake was a last-minute attempt to use up leftover pieces in our fridge, so I didn't do much research here. But I had baked quiches before, so I wasn't worried.
I had 2 hours for this challenge. Go!
I started with my pastry, weighing out my flour, butter, shortening (grated from frozen) and salt, and then rubbing them to a fine crumb.
I added ice-water and mixed it until it came together into a ball, and then I shaped it into a disc and put it in the fridge to chill.
While the pastry was chilling, I started working on my filling. First, I used a mandolin to slice thin ribbons out of my yellow and green zucchini and then finely diced all the excess pieces. I also finely diced half of an onion and section of red pepper. In a measuring cup, I mixed all of my leftover egg whites with salt, pepper, garlic powder, oregano, onion powder and basil.
Next, I sauteed my diced vegetables in some oil just to soften them up.
I took the pastry out of the fridge, rolled it out into a rough circle and lined my pie plate.
I trimmed off the excess and rolled all the leftover pastry into a rope, which I then used to form a more robust crust edge.
I lined the pastry with parchment paper, filled it with baking beans, and blind baked it for 15 minutes, removed the pastry weights and baked for a further 5 minutes.
When my pastry case came out of the oven, I was discouraged to find that it had partially collapsed on one side. This is likely because I removed the pastry weights too early, not giving the pastry enough time to bake into the right shape.
I sprinkled my grated cheese over the base of my pastry and started placing my zucchini curls!
I carefully spooned my sauteed vegetable mixture into the centres of my zucchini curls and then poured in my egg mixture, ensuring that each little compartment was evenly filled.
I sprinkled the remaining cheese over the top and baked it. I determined that it was done once the top was no longer jiggly.
Time: 1 hour 58 minutes
I was generally pleased with the overall look of this quiche. I was glad that the zucchini curls were visible, although it was messy and the varying lengths and widths of my zucchini slices meant that some were buried and some had unravelled.
Time to taste it!
Oh, dear. As soon as I cut into the quiche, I realized that something was wrong. Under the surface, the quiche was very liquidy. My first reaction was "oh it's not cooked through", but the liquid was more watery than undercooked egg so I figured that it must have been something else. I looked it up, and it seems that the oven was either too hot or I cooked it for too long, which caused the fat in the eggs to separate from the liquid. So essentially I curdled my eggs. Yum.
The quiche was still safe to eat and the flavours were actually very good! I'm so disappointed that I messed this up at such a crucial stage. The excess liquid meant that I had achieved an extremely soggy bottom despite my blind baking, which made leftovers practically inedible. So sad.
Not a total loss, though. I learned some valuable lessons about quiche cooking techniques!
Recipes used:
Decoration and flavour inspiration: https://www.nancybirtwhistle.co.uk/recipes/courgette-quiche-2/
Flavour inspiration: https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/cheesy-zucchini-quiche/
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