Quiche Lorraine à la Heather

Today I made quiche lorraine, a typical French quiche. I added sage to mine, and I think it really makes it better. Even my french husband agrees (which is no small task, getting a french person to agree that you have improved on a standard french dish :-)!

Its pretty simple, and when it's done it should look something like this:

I love quiche. To me, it makes a perfectly healthy meal when you add a side salad. Just right for something filling, but not overly so.

So, here is how I make it:

You will need a thirteen inch pie dish.

Ingredients:

3-4 eggs (depending on how big they are, large eggs= 3, medium eggs=4)
1 cup of heavy cream (or you can substitute sour cream, but only if its NOT fat free or "light")
1 package of lardon (or if you can't find it, use 5 pieces of thick bacon chopped up)
1 onion
3 medium sized fresh mushrooms chopped
1 tsp dried sage or two fresh sage leaves chopped/crumbled
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp butter
2 tsp olive oil (or cooking oil)
1/2 cup of shredded white cheese (I use gruyere or "swiss" cheese, you can use any white cheese easily available to you though)
Salt and pepper
1 pre-made crust for savory dishes (here is a recipe if you can't find this in stores)


What to do:

First, preheat your oven to 350 fahrenheit (180 celsius).

Then use 1 tsp of butter spread thinly on the pie pan to keep the crust from sticking, and lay the crust flat on top of it.

Chop the onion (and bacon if you are using it) into small pieces (about 1/4 of an inch).

Put the oil in your frying pan and bring it to a medium heat. Add the onion, wait two minutes, then add the lardon/bacon. While this is browning, chop the mushrooms into similar sized pieces. When the onion and lardon/bacon is nearly brown, add the mushrooms and sage. Leave it cook over low heat (the lowest you can manage) for another two minutes.

Crack all the eggs into a medium sized bowl, add the cream, nutmeg and a dash of salt and pepper. Whisk everything together, so it becomes a nice, even yellow color.

Pour half of your egg mixture onto the pie crust. Then, add everything from the frying pan and spread it out evenly. Next, pour the rest of the egg mixture on top and sprinkle your cheese to cover the surface.

Pop it in the oven for 40 - 50 minutes, it should be brown on top when done.

Pull it out, let it cool for 15 minutes, then enjoy!

I usually have one piece and the rest the next day, I think its sooo good for breakfast too!

Canelés Bordelais

I used all my web scouring skills and I could not find one English version of the canelés recipe that I love. Not one! I decided instead to just translate the recipe we have (to the best of my ability, bear with me if you are actually bilingual and have read the original recette in French).

Et voila, here is what I believe is the best canelés recipe one can do easily at home.

First you need molds. Not fuzzy green fungi, but the floppy silicon kind
You can buy them pretty cheaply here: http://the-cookware-kitchen.amazonwebstore.com/Freshware-15-Cavity-Silicone-Small-Cannele/M/B004G2Q7ZA.htm

Then here is the list of ingredients:

2 1/4 cups of whole milk
1 pinch of salt
2 whole eggs, and 2 additional egg yolks
Half a vanilla stick (or one tsp vanilla extract)
2  - 6 tbsp of rum (depending on how much you like rum J)
3/4  cup of flour
2 cups of powdered sugar (confectioner’s sugar)
3 ½  tbsp. of butter (unsalted is best)

How to make them:

Boil the milk with the butter and vanilla added (try to let it really boil fully so that there is less foam)

While you are waiting for the milk mixture, put the flour, sugar and salt together in a bowl.

In a separate small bowl, mix the two eggs and two egg yolks together.

Pour the egg mixture in with the flour mixture and stir gently.

Once the milk has fully boiled, add it to your batter. Stir it gently and slowly, you don’t want air in the batter, it’s not supposed to be fluffy, but more “custardy” in the middle!

Now let it cool, once its room temperature, add the rum stirring again just a little.

Put it in the fridge for at least a few hours now (some people recommend waiting one day before cooking them, I tend not to have so much patience, so I just wait four or five hours)

As it gets closer to the time to cook them, pre-heat your oven to 500 degrees fahrenheit (or 270 celsius). Once its heated, put the canelés in the molds and let them cook at this temperature for 5 minutes.

* If your oven doesn’t go this high, put it as high as possible and then cook them at this high temperature for a little longer. My sister-in-law does hers at 450 fahrenheit (240 celsius) for 10 minutes instead.

After the initial high heat, reduce the heat to 350 fahrenheit (180 celsius) and let them continue to cook for 55 minutes (they should cook an hour in total). Check them about ten minutes before the end, and make sure they aren’t getting too dark. They should be dark brown, but not burned!

Then take them out, let them cool off and enjoy! These are sometimes better the second day, so if you can manage to leave some, do. They are great with vanilla ice cream, in my opinion. Hope someone tries them!