Fig, Caramelised Shallot and Asparagus Quiche
Quiche. I don’t know where you stand on quiche. Is it old-fashioned? Maybe.
But it really is a classic and it’s delicious. Great for lunch, perfect for a simple supper.
While the original Quiche Lorraine is wonderful, this is a quiche with an unusual filling, and great for vegetarians. You could substitute spring onions or red onions for the shallots, and even leave out the asparagus altogether.
The shortcrust flaky pastry base is based on Michael James’ wonderful recipe from All Day Baking Savoury Not Sweet. It’s a great method for making delicious pastry which I use all the time.
Shortcrust Flaky Pastry
165 unsalted butter, chilled
260g plain flour
4g salt
90g iced water
Custard
100g cream
150g full fat milk
4 free-range eggs
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
50g or to taste of a good blue cheese,or feta if you want something milder
8-10 fresh thyme sprigs
Filling
10 shallots
1 1/2 tablespoons salted butter
2 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
6-8 asparagus spears, ends trimmed
6-8 fresh figs
Grease a 23cm fluted tart tin with a removable bottom.
Pastry
Chop the butter into small cubes and put in the freezer for 15 minutes before using. Using a large board or bench top as your work space, place the flour and salt in a mound. Scatter the chilled butter pieces on top.
With a rolling pin, roll the butter pieces into the flour. This may be a bit messy. Use a dough scraper or a palette knife to push the flour mixture back into the middle. The mixture will come together as quite crumbly. Add the iced water to a well in the middle of the flour mixture. Using the dough scraper or palette knife again, mix the flour/butter into the water, until you have a rough crumbly mixture. Bring the mixture together with your hands into a rough mass. You can carefully add additional water here if the dough is dry, but only add a teaspoon at a time. It’s pretty difficult to get rid of too much water and you don’t want a soggy mess!
Roll this rough dough out to a large rectangle, short sides top and bottom on your work space.
Now fold over the bottom third of the dough up to the middle then fold the top third over the bottom third. Move the dough round 90 degrees and roll out to a large rectangle again. Fold the dough as before. Move around 90 degrees and roll out to a rectangle and fold in the same way. You will have done 3 sets of folds, which will give you flaky layers of pastry.
Put the dough into a zip lock bag or wrap in cling film and refrigerate for an hour before using or up to a couple of days.
Preheat the oven to 210°C, 190°C fan. Take the pastry out of the fridge and put onto your board or bench top, between two sheets of baking paper.
Roll out the pastry in a large circle to about 3mm thick and slightly bigger than the diameter of your tin. Place the pastry circle inside the greased tin, minus the baking paper, easing it into the tin with careful fingers. Leave an overhang of pastry round the edge, in case the pastry shrinks, but if there’s too much, trim some off with a sharp knife. Rest in the fridge uncovered for one hour.
Put some aluminium foil on top of the pastrycase and fill with baking beans or rice. Bake for 30 minutes then remove the baking beans/rice and foil. Turn oven down to 180°C, 160°C fan.
Continue to cook for 20 minutes or until the case is golden brown. The pastry is now ready for the custard and filling.
Custard
Beat the cream, milk and eggs together, and add the salt and pepper and then the crumbled blue cheese or feta and thyme sprigs. Doing this in a large jug will help with pouring the custard into the tin.
Making the quiche
Heat the oven to 210°C, 190°C fan.
Peel and chop the shallots into quarters. Melt the butter over a medium heat in a frying pan and add the shallots and the balsamic vinegar. Cook until the shallots are brown and slightly caramelised. Put the shallot mixture into the blind baked pastry case. Scatter the asparagus spears on top. Halve the figs, and place the halves into the quiche, reserving 4 halves for decoration.
Put the quiche tin onto a shelf in the oven and use this opportunity to carefully pour the custard mixture over the figs and vegetables. Bake for 10 minutes, turn down the oven to 180°C, 160°C fan and cook for 20-25 minutes, until the quiche is firm but the middle has a slight wobble.
Put on a wire rack to cool for 30 minutes. This quiche is nicest served at room temperature - the flavours seem to work best at this temperature.
For serving, put the reserved figs on top as decoration - they look so pretty.
TIPS AND TRICKS
*The number of asparagus spears and figs may vary depending on their size.