Baked delight

Lending itself to countless variations, quiche can be enjoyed
as a healthy snack or pressed into service to please kids

MUCH before we had ever bitten into a quiche, it had endeared itself to us. It came to our rescue time and again when desperate battles were fought on the Scrabble board. Blindly drawing the high scoring ‘Q’ was a mixed blessing. To place it on a square to maximise the scoring entailed knowledge of words, not part of everyday vocabulary but existing indisputably in the dictionary.

Little did one know of the other mouth-watering joys the bake holds in store. It packs a powerful punch for its size and can be enjoyed as a healthy snack or pressed into service to delight the kids weaning them away from brought off-the-shelf junk food. It isn’t difficult to master and lends itself to countless variations. What more can one ask for?

Quiche

Ingredients
 Butter (melted) ¼ cup

Flour 1-1/4 cup

Grated cheese ¼ cup

Water 3 cups

Cheese (grated) 150g

Sweet corn kernels 100 gm

Mushrooms (chopped) 100 gm

Green peas (boiled) 100 gm

Carrot (small, scraped, diced) one

Tomato (small, sliced) one

Tomato puree 1 tsp

Cream 2 tbsp

Fresh coriander (chopped) 1 tsp

Black pepper ¼ tsp

Butter 1 tbsp

A pinch of baking powder

Salt to taste

Method
Sift the flour with baking powder and incorporate the butter rubbing all along till the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Now add cheese. Add water, just enough to bind and knead to obtain a firm dough. Cover with moist cloth and chill for about 20 minutes.

Roll out into thin chapatti-like disc of about 10-inch diameter. Place in a flan tin of 9 inch diameter ensuring that the base is level. Trim excess length over hanging the sides with a sharp knife or pressing with the rolling pin. Prick the base all over with a fork.

Blend the cream, tomato puree and coriander and keep aside. Pre-heat an oven to 200º C and bake the quiche crust for 10-12 minutes till golden.

Heat the butter in a pan. Add mushrooms and cook on medium heat till moisture evaporates. Next, add carrots and peas and cook for about a minute. Then put the sweet corn kernels in, along with salt and pepper. Remove after 30 seconds. Spoon out to pack the baked cooled quiche crust and level. Sprinkle the grated cheese over the filling and spread the tomato puree, cream, dried herbs and coriander mixture over this. Arrange the tomato slices on top.

Bake in a pre-heated oven at 200º C for 20 minutes till the filling is set and golden. Serve cool.





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