This recipe is courtesy of Hutong Chef Joel Shuchat, and will appear in the next edition of The Beijinger.
Behold the greatest baked invention to fuse eggs, strongly flavoured meat, butter and cream into every bite of your dinner. A quiche is a wonderful idea; beautiful, delicious and filled with fat. It scares away health fanatics all over the western world, yet is always thought of as such a healthy, female-friendly dish.
At the Hutong the quiche is always a favorite, especially for the men attending the events, or our Chinese guests who congratulate us on our fine egg-pizza. Our recipe doesn’t look exactly like this, but if we imagine your oven being 1/8th the size of ours then this recipe should fit nicely.
Base:
- 1/2 cup butter cold and diced
- 1cup flour
- A few pinches of ice water
- 1/2 Tsp salt
1) Mix the salt into the flour well.
2) Add the butter to the flour and use your hands to quickly mix until it looks like a somewhat even grain of butter-flour mixture.
3) Use your hands to add in ice water while gently mixing the flour just to the point the whole thing holds together. Don’t touch it any more than you need to.
4) Mold into a ball and wrap and refrigerate at least an hour for the dough to set.
Flavour:
- 6 mushrooms sliced thin
- 1 leek sliced thin
- 2 cloves of garlic minced
- 150g of LaRou
- 2tbps cooking oil
1) Add the smoked meat to a pot of boiling water and cook for 5 minutes.
2) Discard the skin and then slice the meat thinly.
3) Heat the oil in a pan and add the garlic, meat, and onions and cook until the onions are starting to brown, then add the mushrooms and cook until the water is nearly gone.
4) set aside to cool completely.
Filling:
- 4 eggs
- 1 cup of cream
- 1/2 cup coconut milk
- Pinch of nutmeg, chili powder, black pepper
- 1 tsp salt
1) beat the eggs until well blended
2) continue beating while adding the remaining ingredients until the mixture is evenly blended.
Mount and bake:
1) roll out the dough quickly onto the pan, being careful to keep the thickness down to 3-4mm. Patch up any rough areas with extra dough liberally; pastry dough can be easily handled as long as the butter stays cold and the dough is not ‘worked.’
2) pre-bake the crust for 10 minutes.
3) pour in the cooked vegetables and meat and spread evenly.
4) pour in the filling and use a spoon to make sure it reaches well into the vegetables.
5) bake for roughly 25 minutes or until the top begins to brown.
6) Let the quiche set for 5 minutes and then gently cut with a sharp knife and serve.
