Having a quickie or the quiche?

A recipe for Quiche Périgordine

Spinach and salmon quiche, one of the less grim combinations

There’s a story I’m sure is apochryphal that when he was crossing the States campaigning for the Presidency, George Bush Jnr went to a diner for lunch and when the waitress asked him what he wanted, he studied the menu and announced to the blushing young woman, “I’d like a quickie.” His campaign manager leaned across and said, “Sir, it’s pronounced ‘quiche’.”

I’ve never been much of a fan of what was always a choice of last resort at second-rate English pubs and cafes, a chilly slab of flabby pastry with stiff egg custard filling anchoring unrelated ingredients, a more expensive take on the British bacon-and-egg pie, itself a ghastly affair. Quiches seemed to me to be the English interpretation of what the Italians expressively call a “svuota frigo” – fridge emptier - containing the most discordant and unappetising of leftovers.

Then I discovered two tricks: one culinary, the other of the imagination. Now, I consider the quiche a spring and summer glory.

French records state that a quiche-like tart was served to Charles III, Duke of Lorraine, at a formal dinner in 1586. It was probably made with a bread dough crust, not a pastry one. ‘Quiche Lorraine’ was first officially recorded as a dish in 1605 in Lorraine, the north eastern area of France where the langue d'oïl is spoken. The title was only formalised in regular French in 1855. It wasn’t recognized in England until over a hundred years later, around 1925, though dishes made of eggs-and-cream custards had long been established, with recipes for them appearing in the 14^th century cookbook, The Forme of Cury. The ‘quiche’ part of the name is thought to be related to the German word for a tart or cake, Kuchen.

James Peterson, the American food writer and cookery teacher, apprenticed at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris for a period in the 1960s and came across quiche for the first time late in that decade. He proclaimed it “the most sophisticated and delicious thing I have ever tasted.”

The quiche went downhill from there, with Peterson writing that by the 1980s, American quiches had begun to include “bizarre and unpleasant” ingredients such as broccoli. When Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche, Bruce Feirstein’s satire on stereotypes of masculinity, was published in 1982, Peterson considered it the final nail in the quiche’s coffin, turning “a rugged and honest country dish (into) a symbol of effete snobbery.”

I’m behind him all the way. Or was, until I discovered what I already knew but never practised: that a brushing of the baked-blind crust with a wash of egg white then a brief return to the oven would seal the pastry and save it from the repellent sogginess of the English pub and Ladies-Who-Lunch ‘special’. Also, a tip I thoroughly recommend is to ignore a recipe’s instruction to add whole eggs and use only the yolks. It makes the filling much creamier. You can make meringues with the whites.

My next realisation was that while a quiche should never be a solution to use up what should be consigned to the bin, it can be a bare canvas for some pretty stunning combinations. One summer in the Dordogne, the south west region of France where most of what is on offer has webbed feet, I made up this Quiche Périgordine.

Photo Klaus Einwanger: Bruno’s Cookbook by Martin Walker & Julia Watson

If you plan to make your own pastry, my go-to for tarts and pies is this recipe which makes a very short crust. Whether you do or use bought, lightly grease a 20cm/8 in quiche tin. Butter enough parchment paper on both sides to overhang the rim of the tin. This will help you lift it out at the end of cooking. Line with the rolled out pastry, cover with dry parchment paper and baking beads or dried pulses and bake blind for 15 minutes at 190C/375F. Take the tin out, remove the weights and the paper and brush the crust with egg white then return to the oven for a further 5 minutes.

For the filling

1 leg and 1 breast of Confit de canard (confitted duck)
6 gésiers (confitted duck gizzards) (optional but I promise you they’re not revolting)
2 Toulouse or other garlicky sausages, cooked and cooled
100g/3½ oz Cantal cheese (or Cheddar or hard cheese)
5 egg yolks
225g/7½ fl oz crème fraîche or light cream
¼ teaspoon grated nutmeg
freshly ground black pepper
1 large bunch flat-leaf parsley, leaves only, roughly chopped
1 clove garlic, peeled and finely minced

Remove the skin and bones from the duck and shred. Peel and shred the gésiers. Slice the sausage into 1¼ cms/½ inch slices.

Grate the cheese. In a jug, beat the yolks with the cream and season with nutmeg and pepper. Add the parsley and garlic and whisk in well.

Scatter half the cheese over the pastry base then distribute across it all the meats. Scatter over the remaining cheese. Gently pour the cream mixture over all.

Set on a baking sheet and bake 20 minutes at 190C/375F then lower the heat to 180C/350F and cook for 20 minutes more. The custard should wobble but not be wet, so check after the last 15 minutes, giving the pie tin a wriggle. If the edges of the quiche are browning, tent the pie with foil.

Cool 5 minutes then lift the quiche out by the parchment paper to a plate to serve, on its paper or with it removed.