What’d You Do Last Weekend?
Make your own bitters.
Bacon and Goat Cheese Quiche
I don't know what I was thinking - well, I knew we had a log of goat cheese that needed to be eaten, and a tiny bit of home-cured bacon in the fridge that wouldn't be enough for a real meal. I decided at the last minute to make a quiche. That's not the surprising part, quiches are a piece of cake. It's always the crust that causes me to catch my breath.
If you know me, you know I've long had a love/hate relationship with pie crust. I can make a tart dough no problem. Bread? Sure. Cake? Simple. But pie crust, that amazing little piece of baking wonder gets me every time. I've probably made hundreds of pie crusts in my time and I swear they've all sucked. Universally. Bennie coached me for years. My teacher in pastry school did too. Eunice has even shown me her technique. I get it all, really. I completely understand the method, the reasoning behind it all - but still, when the stuff tumbles onto my board, I sort of just can't seem to get it right. It's always too tough. Always. No matter if I'm going for an all-butter or all-shortening crust. Cream cheese crusts foil me too, but they're a lot more forgiving. I think my problems always begin with the ice water. I nail the texture of fat to flour, but once I introduce water into the equation - when the protein starts to harden - that's where I seem to lose the touch.
Given that, I was so rushed to make the quiche that I figured I would screw it up anyway - I might as well use a crust recipe I hadn't used before. I pulled down my Baking With Julia book. Because I had just finished reading My Life In France, I was reminded just how much work she put into every recipe to make it foolproof. I thought, 'if she can make sole muniere for the unskilled housewife of the 60s, certainly she'd put the effort into a decent pie crust that someone like me couldn't screw up.'
I threw all the ingredients together like I'd always done, but this time - magic happened. So much so that Todd said it was just about as good as his mom's crust, a high compliment indeed. And I must have eaten about 1/4 c of the dough raw, it tasted so good. I don't know what was really different about this one except that I took special care not to overwork anything, and I left it as long as I could before rolling it out.
I won't provide the instructions for making the dough, only the ingredients. Experience has taught me that I can't rely on my technique, so you can go to the book and look at the 3 pages of notes for details. The recipe's here as a reference.
Flaky Pie Dough
5 1/4 c pastry or AP flour (I used AP)
1 T kosher salt
1 1/2 sticks cold unsalted butter
1 3/4 c (11 oz) solid vegetable shortening, chilled
1 c ice water
Bacon and Goat Cheese Quiche
1 piece thick slice bacon, chopped
1 shallot or 1/2 a small onion, chopped
Goat cheese, to taste
4 eggs
1/2 c milk
Salt and pepper, to taste
Grated nutmeg, to taste
- Fry the bacon. When it's browned nicely, toss in shallot or onion and cook until limp. Remove from the heat and allow to cool to room temperature.
- Combine the eggs and milk, salt and pepper, and nutmeg. Add the cooled bacon mixture.
- Pour the egg mixture into a pre-baked pie crust (blind baked, partially cooked) and break off pieces of goat cheese all over the egg mixture.
- Bake at 375 until the eggs are set, roughly 15 - 20 minutes.
