Cheese Quiche

Cheese Quiche is great on its own, but you could also add tomatoes, sweetcorn, bacon, or any leftover veg for a tasty weekday supper or weekend lunch.

Cheese Quiche

This recipe uses pâte brisée for the case but you could buy a shortcrust pastry case if you don’t fancy making it.

Pastry for Quiches

Some people like making pastry, and for others it can often be a bit of a faff. You mustn’t overwork it and you have to get the shape right when you roll it out. For years I hardly made pastry but a couple of discoveries changed my mind.

The first is pâte brisée, a French savoury pastry which is a bit more forgiving than shortcrust. It’s stronger and I think it looks and tastes better. It’s also not as boring as shortcrust (or maybe that’s just my heavy-handedness). Details of how to make the pastry are here but once you’ve made it a couple of times all you need are the quantities.

The other thing that makes the process much easier is that you don’t roll out the pastry – you press it into a china flan dish instead. You don’t even have to pre-cook the pastry case, although I usually do.

I have to say that if you are looking for pastry perfection, this is probably not for you. But if you want to make everyday quiches for your family, which are good enough for guests, and don’t take a lot of time and effort, look no further!

Batch-cooking Quiches

Quiches are so useful for using up milk and/or eggs if you have a surfeit. I use a lot of both, but sometimes my grocery delivery gets out of sync with what I’m using. Then it’s time for a batch of quiches. I make at least two, and often four, at a time, although sometimes I might only fill two quiches and freeze two pastry cases.

Needless to say, you need at least four flan dishes for this. For this Cheese Quiche recipe, I use a 24cm white china flan dish which will serve 6-8, depending on appetite. If you double the quantity you could make an 18cm and a 28cm quiche instead of two 24cm quiches. That gives you scope for feeding different numbers of people, or for cutting up a large flan and freezing the pieces individually for lunches or quick suppers.

Cheese Quiche Variations

For all variations, reserve 50g of the grated cheese to finish the quiche:

• Cheese & Tomato Quiche – As you can see, I made one quiche with tomatoes. Cut 6-8 cherry tomatoes in half and arrange on top of the cheese in the dish. Sprinkle the reserved cheese over
• Cheese & Sweetcorn Quiche – Scatter a small tin of sweetcorn over the cheese
• Cheese & Ham Quiche – Sprinkle half the cheese over the base. Cut 2-3 slices of ham into approx. 1 cm squares with scissors and scatter over the cheese. Top with the remaining cheese.

HELPFUL TOOLS

• Microplane Spice Mill –  For decades I grated nutmeg with a little grater – which is fine for most recipes, but if you want to grate a lot it can be a lot of effort. This little gadget makes it all so easy.
• China flan dish – In fact I have half a dozen of these in various sizes – and not all white. They are fine in the freezer so you can easily freeze your quiches or pastry cases.

IF YOU LIKE THIS..

Why don’t you try:

• Tuna and Tomato Quiche
• Salmon and Prawn Quiche
• Pâte brisée – pastry for quiches