Weeknight Dinner: Quiche with Gruyère and Bacon
Today is Julia Child’s birthday. A few years ago, I had the pleasure of attending the graduation ceremony of a dear friend who was graduating with a chef’s toque. The speaker at her commencement was none other than Julia. Julia was elderly and, if not exactly frail, then slower than the livewire we were used to after all of those years of television. Though hunched, she was still a big woman with a big personality, and she was a titan to that crowd that was, to a person, captivated. Somehow, Julia just towered on that dais.
The phenomenon of the celebrity cook is an odd but important development in the evolution of celebrity and of cooking. In its purest expression, feeding your family is a humble pursuit, and one could make a convincing argument that to pursue fame for the act of feeding hungry people is the opposite of what cooking is supposed to be. The best celebrity chefs are not those who simper after fame but who view the portals of media as classrooms. This was one of the ways that Julia set the standard, for her entry into the American canon was ensured not because she sought fame but because she sought to teach. She sought to teach Americans how to eat well with all that that contains: identifying the best ingredients, preparing them with care and attentiveness, knowing and utilizing technique without being constricted by it. From small bite to banquet, from everyday cooking to festivals, the food was about the joy of living, and the expression of that was available to anyone who cared to learn, to practice and to do.
With that generosity of spirit and willingness to study and apply the learning, it’s no wonder that Child gravitated towards French cooking. Foodies worldwide argue unceasingly over which cuisine is the pinnacle of expressing life through cooking and eating. Ultimately, the answer is “all of them,” but it’s hard to argue that French cooking is a pinnacle of both substance and spirit. The French respect cooking enough to have evolved a methode for it, according cooking the same cultural reverence as science, art and language, with it following that cuisine is an area of education for both the practioners and the consumers.
This is at odds with the snobbery that can accompany cuisine, for just as surely as cuisine was officialized as an area of study and practice, haute cuisine arrived. In its purest expression, haute cuisine is an honorable practice that accords cooking the same cultural reverence as other skills, such as making clothes, composing music, or making a film. But so often the snobs take over. Cost is perceived to be synonymous with quality. The critique becomes more important than the meal.
This is another area in which Julia blazed a trail, for while she had studied cuisine in the French methode, the lesson she took away was that of not showing off what a good cook you are but of simply being one. She absorbed the methode in its truest expression, as the study and application of the technique of cooking. With the methode, the cooking is respected. Every meal is prepared with skill and attentiveness utilizing the best ingredients available to the cook. What arrives at the table speaks for itself, not to seek attention for the cook but to do an honorable, even exemplary, job of the sacred task of feeding hungry people something good to eat.
This seems at odds with haute cuisine, where star status is not only possible but a goal, and that is why, at the time, French cooking seemed at odds with the American table. It was certainly startling to American palates and audiences in 1963 when The French Chef premiered. Prior to that, French cooking in America was the provenance of French nationals living in the melting pot and a relatively few pricey restaurants. Julia saw no contradiction in bringing French cooking to American kitchens and dining rooms. She knew that the sometimes fancy ingredients and insistence on technique would seem uppity to some Americans, but she also knew that there was room in the American home for the quality of life that French cooking embodies. Indeed, not to make a bad pun, she knew there was a hunger for it.
Julia was right. The French Chef was a hit, one of the first genuine such for the Public Broadcasting System. Fame did happen and not just for Julia, as The French Chef prompted the emergence of lifestyle celebrities from Robert Mondavi to Vincent Price, from the Galloping Gourmet to the Galoomphing Gourmand. Omelet pans and brioche cups appeared in American kitchens and steak au poivre and potato gratin appeared on the American Table.
Mastering the Art of French Cooking became one of the pivotal tomes in every American homekeeper’s library. Along with the steak and the potatoes, American cooks were baking cakes Saint Andre, preparing mignonette for oysters, soaking flageolets, primping frisee. They were mixing then-exotic anchovies into sauces, appraising extracts of vanilla and almond with exacting standards, even making their own mustard. The most adventuresome cooks assayed the recipes that were outré by comparison, from game to sweetbreads. Soon enough, there was a place at the American table for a good boeuf bourginonne, a classic omelette, vinaigrette.
And there was a place for quiche. It’s difficult to imagine now how outlandish quiche seemed to Americans just a few decades ago. At that time, lunch was a meal of sandwiches gobbled from lunch pails, of soup poured into the cup-lid of a thermos, of patchworks of kitchen table leftovers. Lunch was a worker’s meal; too earnest for such high-falutin’ chow as a savory pie made with eggs, cream and cheese, even though it was as a worker’s lunch that quiche happened. Once we got a taste of quiche, Americans developed a taste for it. As it has long been in France, quiche is now an American staple of both the corner café and the home cook’s go-to kit. The best quiche is rustic but sophisticated, humble but perfectly realized. It’s really not that difficult and once you do learn, it’s virtually foolproof.
In honor of the methode du cuisine, of French food’s place at the American Table, and of especially of Julia Child, here is a Urban Home’s official recipe for quiche. Classic quiche is made with eggs, cream and bacon; that is Quiche Lorraine. Adding cheese to the quiche renders it Quiche Vosgienne, and adding leeks or onions renders it Quiche Alsacienne. Fittingly for the American Table, the quiche below incorporates all three. Serve your quiche warm or cold with a spritely arugula salad and a glass of chilled white wine – try an off-dry Alsatian Riesling such as Domaine Albert Mann 2011 Riesling Cuvée Albert or a crisp apple Lambic. Serve apricot bars for dessert and, in the words of a legend, Bon Appetit!
Quiche with Gruyère and Bacon
Cave-aged Gruyère is often available in the cheese case at larger supermarkets, and is readily available in gourmet markets and at the cheesemonger’s. It is worth seeking out for the distinctive smoky quality it imparts to the dish, but if you cannot locate cave-aged Gruyère, use a good Swiss cheese.
For the crust
1-1/4 cups all purpose flour plus extra for rolling
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 stick unsalted butter plus extra for the pan
Scant 1/4 cup cold water
For the filling
4 slices bacon
½ pound wedge cave-aged Gruyère
1 medium leek
3 eggs
½ cup heavy cream
Butter
Grated nutmeg
Freshly ground black pepper
Prepare the shell
The phenomenon of the celebrity cook is an odd but important development in the evolution of celebrity and of cooking. In its purest expression, feeding your family is a humble pursuit, and one could make a convincing argument that to pursue fame for the act of feeding hungry people is the opposite of what cooking is supposed to be. The best celebrity chefs are not those who simper after fame but who view the portals of media as classrooms. This was one of the ways that Julia set the standard, for her entry into the American canon was ensured not because she sought fame but because she sought to teach. She sought to teach Americans how to eat well with all that that contains: identifying the best ingredients, preparing them with care and attentiveness, knowing and utilizing technique without being constricted by it. From small bite to banquet, from everyday cooking to festivals, the food was about the joy of living, and the expression of that was available to anyone who cared to learn, to practice and to do.
With that generosity of spirit and willingness to study and apply the learning, it’s no wonder that Child gravitated towards French cooking. Foodies worldwide argue unceasingly over which cuisine is the pinnacle of expressing life through cooking and eating. Ultimately, the answer is “all of them,” but it’s hard to argue that French cooking is a pinnacle of both substance and spirit. The French respect cooking enough to have evolved a methode for it, according cooking the same cultural reverence as science, art and language, with it following that cuisine is an area of education for both the practioners and the consumers.
This is at odds with the snobbery that can accompany cuisine, for just as surely as cuisine was officialized as an area of study and practice, haute cuisine arrived. In its purest expression, haute cuisine is an honorable practice that accords cooking the same cultural reverence as other skills, such as making clothes, composing music, or making a film. But so often the snobs take over. Cost is perceived to be synonymous with quality. The critique becomes more important than the meal.
This is another area in which Julia blazed a trail, for while she had studied cuisine in the French methode, the lesson she took away was that of not showing off what a good cook you are but of simply being one. She absorbed the methode in its truest expression, as the study and application of the technique of cooking. With the methode, the cooking is respected. Every meal is prepared with skill and attentiveness utilizing the best ingredients available to the cook. What arrives at the table speaks for itself, not to seek attention for the cook but to do an honorable, even exemplary, job of the sacred task of feeding hungry people something good to eat.
This seems at odds with haute cuisine, where star status is not only possible but a goal, and that is why, at the time, French cooking seemed at odds with the American table. It was certainly startling to American palates and audiences in 1963 when The French Chef premiered. Prior to that, French cooking in America was the provenance of French nationals living in the melting pot and a relatively few pricey restaurants. Julia saw no contradiction in bringing French cooking to American kitchens and dining rooms. She knew that the sometimes fancy ingredients and insistence on technique would seem uppity to some Americans, but she also knew that there was room in the American home for the quality of life that French cooking embodies. Indeed, not to make a bad pun, she knew there was a hunger for it.
Julia was right. The French Chef was a hit, one of the first genuine such for the Public Broadcasting System. Fame did happen and not just for Julia, as The French Chef prompted the emergence of lifestyle celebrities from Robert Mondavi to Vincent Price, from the Galloping Gourmet to the Galoomphing Gourmand. Omelet pans and brioche cups appeared in American kitchens and steak au poivre and potato gratin appeared on the American Table.
Mastering the Art of French Cooking became one of the pivotal tomes in every American homekeeper’s library. Along with the steak and the potatoes, American cooks were baking cakes Saint Andre, preparing mignonette for oysters, soaking flageolets, primping frisee. They were mixing then-exotic anchovies into sauces, appraising extracts of vanilla and almond with exacting standards, even making their own mustard. The most adventuresome cooks assayed the recipes that were outré by comparison, from game to sweetbreads. Soon enough, there was a place at the American table for a good boeuf bourginonne, a classic omelette, vinaigrette.
And there was a place for quiche. It’s difficult to imagine now how outlandish quiche seemed to Americans just a few decades ago. At that time, lunch was a meal of sandwiches gobbled from lunch pails, of soup poured into the cup-lid of a thermos, of patchworks of kitchen table leftovers. Lunch was a worker’s meal; too earnest for such high-falutin’ chow as a savory pie made with eggs, cream and cheese, even though it was as a worker’s lunch that quiche happened. Once we got a taste of quiche, Americans developed a taste for it. As it has long been in France, quiche is now an American staple of both the corner café and the home cook’s go-to kit. The best quiche is rustic but sophisticated, humble but perfectly realized. It’s really not that difficult and once you do learn, it’s virtually foolproof.
In honor of the methode du cuisine, of French food’s place at the American Table, and of especially of Julia Child, here is a Urban Home’s official recipe for quiche. Classic quiche is made with eggs, cream and bacon; that is Quiche Lorraine. Adding cheese to the quiche renders it Quiche Vosgienne, and adding leeks or onions renders it Quiche Alsacienne. Fittingly for the American Table, the quiche below incorporates all three. Serve your quiche warm or cold with a spritely arugula salad and a glass of chilled white wine – try an off-dry Alsatian Riesling such as Domaine Albert Mann 2011 Riesling Cuvée Albert or a crisp apple Lambic. Serve apricot bars for dessert and, in the words of a legend, Bon Appetit!
Quiche with Gruyère and Bacon
Cave-aged Gruyère is often available in the cheese case at larger supermarkets, and is readily available in gourmet markets and at the cheesemonger’s. It is worth seeking out for the distinctive smoky quality it imparts to the dish, but if you cannot locate cave-aged Gruyère, use a good Swiss cheese.
For the crust
1-1/4 cups all purpose flour plus extra for rolling
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 stick unsalted butter plus extra for the pan
Scant 1/4 cup cold water
For the filling
4 slices bacon
½ pound wedge cave-aged Gruyère
1 medium leek
3 eggs
½ cup heavy cream
Butter
Grated nutmeg
Freshly ground black pepper
Prepare the shell
- Heat the oven to 375 degrees F.Place the stick of butter into a large mixing bowl. Set aside to soften.
- Place the flour, salt and baking powder into a bowl. Shake the bowl to ensure the dry ingredients are mixed together.
- While the butter is softening, generously coat the bottom and sides of a ceramic or metal deep dish pie pan with butter. Place the prepared pan by the rolling surface.
- Sprinkle a clean breadboard or other food safe surface with flour. Place a rolling pin by the rolling surface.
- Once the butter is workable, no more than 5 minutes, transfer the dry ingredients into the bowl containing the butter. Use a pastry blender to incorporate the butter into the dry ingredients until the mixture resembles small crumbs.
- Sprinkle the dough with 1 tablespoon ice water. Sprinkle your hands with flour. Use the heel of your palm to gently bring the mixture in the bowl together, folding the dough up and sprinkling the dough with scant tablespoons of water as needed. Work just until the mixture comes together.
- Gently transfer the dough to the floured rolling surface. Sprinkle the dough lightly with flour. Starting at the center of the ball of dough and rolling outwards, roll the remaining dough half in four directions corresponding to 12, 3, 6 and 9 on the face of a clock. Turn the dough ¼ turn and repeat.
- Continue rolling and turning the dough until it is about 1/4 inch thick and large enough to cover the prepared surface of the pie pan.
- Fold the rolled dough into half and gently transfer it to the prepared pie pan. Unfold the dough and settle it into the pan, pressing the sides and bottom of the crust so that it is even and pushing together any holes to patch them.
- Place the pan into the oven and bake the crust for eight minutes.
- After eight minutes,remove the pan from the oven. Place the partially baked quiche shell on a cookie sheet to settke while you prepare the filling.
- Place the four strips of bacon into a heavy skillet or saucepan. Place the saucepan on a burner and turn the burner to medium. Cook the bacon until it is crisp but not burnt, approximately 7 minutes.
- While the bacon is cooking, lay the leek upon a clean cutting board reserved for vegetables. Cut away the root end of the leek. Cut away the green stalks. Remove and discard any papery outer skin if any from the prepped leek. You should have a piece of leek that is white to pale green. It is okay if it is gritty.
- Slice the leek lengthwise into two long halves. Slice the halves lengthwise into quarters. Align the quarters and cut across the quarters to form tiny pieces. It is okay if the pieces are gritty.
- Gently transfer the chopped leek, grit and all, into a colander. Rinse the chopped leek very thoroughly under running water, using your hand to swirl the pieces in the colander under the stream of water. Once the leeks are clean, leave them in the sink to drain.
- Once the bacon has cooked until crisp but not burnt, use tongs to gently remove the pieces and place them on a plate or double-layer of paper towels to drain. Give the colander a shake to express excess water if any. Working carefully to avoid flare-ups, gently add the cleaned, chopped leek to the bacon grease in the pan. Saute the leeks in the bacon grease over medium-low heat until they are soft and fragrant, approximately five minutes.
- While the leeks are sautéing, position a box grater over a large mixing bowl. Unwrap the cheese and grate it into the bowl, using the medium or large setting. As you work towards the rind end of the cheese, the cheese may turn crumbly; that is okay. Set the rind aside for another use.
- Once the bacon has cooled, crumble each piece of bacon into the bowl containing the cheese. Once the leeks are soft and fragrant, turn off the burner. Return the colander to the sink and scrape the sautéed leeks into the colander. Give the colander a shake and leave in the sink to drain while you prepare the eggs and cream.
- Break the eggs into a mixing bowl. Use a wire whisk to mix the eggs very thoroughly until foamy and pale yellow. Sprinkle the eggs with a generous grinding of freshly ground pepper and a pinch of grated nutmeg.
- Use the whisk to continue mixing the eggs as you pour the cream into the egg mixture in a thin stream. Use the whisk to thoroughly incorporate the mixture until it is thick and pale yellow.
- Remove the colander from the sink and use a silicon spatula to transfer the sautéed leeks into the cheese-bacon mixture and to thoroughly mix the ingredients together. It is okay if the cheese starts to melt.
- Use the spatula to gently transfer the bacon-cheese-leek mixture to the quiche shell that is resting in its pan on the cookie sheet. Do not pack the mixture tightly; there should be room for the egg-cheese mixture to mix in.
- Gently pour the egg-cheese mixture into the quiche shell. Use the spatula to get all of the mixture into the shell. Use the spatula to gently push the ingredients in the shell so that the ingredients mix thoroughly.
- Use a butter knife to dot the top of the quiche with butter.
- Open the oven door and very carefully transfer the cookie sheet containing the pan containing the quiche into the oven. Gently close the oven door.
- Bake the quiche (no peeking) 35 minutes.
- After 35 minutes, open the oven carefully to avoid steam. The quiche should be puffy and golden brown, without any visible wet or undercooked spots. If necessary, cook the quiche 3 – 5 more minutes, or until the filling is cooked through with no visible wet patches.
- Once the quiche is cooked, gently remove it from the oven and set aside to cool. As the quiches cools, it will deflate; that is okay. Once the quiche is cooled, cut it into wedges and serve.
Comments
Post a Comment