I admit, I’m not a big fan of eggs. But when you have eggs, milk and cream mixed together with some cheese and fillings in a flaky pastry? It’s one of my favorite things to have.
Flaky Pastry (Pate Brisee)
From Martha Stewart
Note: While this recipe says you need a food processor, I did this by hand. You get messy, but it’s doable if you don’t have the equipment.
Makes two 8- to 10-inch single-crust pies or one 8- to 10-inch double-crust pie (or 48 mini muffin tinned items)
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon coarse salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) chilled unsalted butter, cut in pieces
1/4 to 1/2 cup ice water
Directions
For those with a food processor: place the flour, salt, and sugar in the bowl of your processor, and process for a few seconds to combine. Add the butter, and process until the mixture resembles coarse meal, about 10 seconds. With the machine running, add the ice water in a slow, steady stream, through the feed tube, just until the dough holds together. Do not process for more than 30 seconds.
If you’re doing this by hand: make sure you cut the butter into as small pieces as possible. Place the flour, salt, and sugar into a bowl. If you have a pastry blender, use it to cut the butter into the flour. If you don’t, you can use two knives. Or clean hands (which is what I did). Keep working until it resembles coarse meal. Slowly, add the water and mix with your hands. Stop when the dough begins to hold together.
Turn the dough out onto a work surface. Divide in two. Place each half on a sheet of plastic wrap. Flatten, and form two discs. Wrap, and refrigerate at least 1 hour before using. (Also, make sure you pull out the dough well before you want to start working on the quiches. Rolling out rock hard dough is sort of impossible)
Mini Quiches
Also from Martha Stewart
Makes 24 (I made two batches, see note at end)
1 bunch pencil asparagus, trimmed
Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 large eggs
1 large egg yolk
Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
All-purpose flour, for work surface
1/2 recipe Pate Brisee
3 ounces finely shredded Gruyere cheese
2 ounces cooked ham, cut into 1/4-inch pieces
Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Bring a medium pot of water to a boil. Cut 3 inches from the tip-ends of the asparagus; reserving remaining stalks for another use. Generously add salt to boiling water. Add asparagus and cook until just tender, about 2 minutes; Drain. Cut into 1/2-inch pieces; set aside.
In a medium bowl, whisk together milk, heavy cream, eggs, yolk, and nutmeg. Season with salt and pepper. Strain through a sieve into a medium bowl; set aside.
On a lightly floured surface, roll out pate brisee to slightly less than 1/8-inch thick. Using a 2 3/4-inch round cutter, cut out 24 rounds. Fit rounds into a 24-cup nonstick mini muffin tin. If the pate brisee becomes too soft to work with, place in refrigerator to chill for 15 minutes. Divide half of the cheese, evenly between the lined cups. Top with ham. Divide milk mixture evenly between cups. Top each with 3 to 4 pieces of asparagus. Sprinkle with remaining cheese.
Bake until puffed and golden brown, about 30 minutes. Remove from oven and immediately remove quiches from muffin tin and transfer to a wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Notes: I used bacon in place of the ham, and it was lovely. I also made one batch with asparagus and one with broccoli- equally lovely. Just make sure you cut the florets into small enough pieces.
Now, because I made baked these ahead of time I let them cool on the wire rack, then put them in a tupperware container in the fridge. From there, I just put them on a sheet pan and threw them in while I was making my macaroni cups for a few minutes until they were warm again. I haven’t tried freezing them, but the site which recommended this recipe said that they freeze well.
If you’re making this for the first time, realize that the dough will be the most time consuming part of this. Rolling it out, and stamping the rounds took me about 45 minutes for the first batch, and only 10 for the second. I did not strain out the filling, though I would imagine that’s just to make sure that the filling is as smooth as possible.
They were a big hit with the guests and of the 48, there was only 1 leftover for my husband to try afterwards. Considering family members were hinting that they wanted me to make this for a party of theirs, I think I’ll be making some variations on this from now on.