pascale's quiche lorraine

quiche lorraine was apparently born in the Alsace-Lorraine regions of France bordering on Germany. These two regions are often linked together, Alsace the richer one on the border and Lorraine the poorer one just inside, probably since the pair kept getting stolen back and forth between the two nations in their numerous wars. The capital city of Alsace is Strasbourg, pascale's hometown, so she is probably a reliable source for an authentic version of this well known classic which she served to us in her tiny little Paris apartment in a cheap lightweight Teflon-coated 30cm (12in) diameter quiche pan. One of which she helped us acquire before returning home. The recipe came later by email but required some translation / modification.

Here is the receipe of the Quiche Lorraine:

Mix together in a bowl :

200 g of shredded mozarella (in france you would take: gruyère)
300 g ham cutted in very small cubes
150 g "lardons" (I don't know the translation, may be you know Ani ...)
300 g of white mushrooms cutted in small pieces

and transfer onto the pie crust in the tefal baking plate

In the bowl, mix together :
4 eggs,
15 dl of milk
30 dl of heavy cream
1 spoon flour,
salt, pepper and grounded nutmeg

Pour the mixture onto the pie and bake it at 200° Celsius. Than Enjoy it
!!!!

I miss you

love
Pascale and Arnaud

We'll overlook the mozzarella remark and forget about the untranslatable lard ingredient, clearly more fat anyway. So here is what we actually did with this input.

ingredients

crust: 1 frozen pie crust round, thawed
flavor additives: 8 oz = 1/2 lb gruyere cheese, grated (or a mixture of mozzarella, muenster, feta and gruyere for an extra kick!); 4 - 6 oz = 1/4 - 1/3 lb ham, cubed small; 8 oz = 1/2 lb white mushrooms, chopped, sauteed in:; 2 T butter
custard: 4 eggs; 2 c light cream or half and half; 1 T flour; 1/2 t nutmeg; salt and pepper to taste

instructions

Prepare the pie crust in the bottom of the quiche pan as directed on the package (prebaking about 15 minutes at about 425º ).
Meanwhile grate the cheese, chop the ham, clean and chop the mushrooms and saute them in the butter until soft.
Mix together the custard ingredients in a large bowl.
Arrange the flavor additives evenly on the pie crust bottom and then pour the custard mixture over them.
Bake about 30 minutes at 400º.
Test for donenesss by inserting a knife or other sharp instrument into the center of the quiche. Done when it comes out "clean".
Serve immediately.

notes

Illustrations available. Very tasty. We'll be doing more quiche after this.
Get your ham at the deli counter. Ask for a 1/4 in slice of a high quality precooked ham. That should be about right. No need to have too much pig in your quiche.
Impatiently waiting for the email recipe, we gave a try to an appealing recipe from epicurious.com which seemed typical: 6 eggs and 1 2/3 c cream/milk, so we were surprised that only 4 eggs are really necessary with a bit more liquid. Of course, having reduced the cholesterol, one can also lower the fat in the liquid component as well. You probably can get away with using all lowfat milk instead.
This can be done the day before and reheated in the oven for later serving. The microwave is ruled out if you use a metal quiche pan as we did, but not if you use a ceramic pan instead.
Serves 6–8 if not the entire meal.
In 2010 ani had some leftover mixed cheeses from some recently made Armenian boereg (cheese filled phyllo dough): grated mozzarella, muenster, and feta, so we used about half the gruyere and maybe a bit more than 4oz of this mix, and it gave it a really nice kick.

vegetarian option

We later tried this as a vegetarian dish by replacing the onion by one leek and the ham by chopped red (half) and yellow (half) sweet peppers. A very tasty alternative that surprised bob's skeptical expectations of ani's ingredient switch. The leek subsitution emerged from our love for the leek tart. And the fact that we had a leek and no onion when this transformation took place the first time. Flexibility feeds creativity?