I’m currently cooking my way through Mary Berry’s Complete Cook Book, which the Pragmatist gave/lent to me when I moved out for my first full-time job. I wanted to document the experience as a kind of cooking diary, and so “The English Student Cooks” was born. This will be an irregular feature, as I only cook when I’m home on my days off, which is Not That Often.
Roquefort Quiche
Method: Shortcrust pastry, as usual: I rubbed 2oz butter into 125g plain flour, added some water and stirred with a knife until it bound together in a dough. That went into the fridge to chill for half an hour.
Then: I rolled it out on a floured surface, lined my special quiche tin with the pastry, put some baking beans in and managed to get it safely into the oven (on 220 degrees Celsius) on the second attempt. (I had a slight mishap with the quiche tin’s loose bottom.*)
While that blind-baked, I made the filling: I mixed 90g crumbled Gorgonzola (so technically this is Gorgonzola quiche not Roquefort quiche) with 180g (a whole tub!) of Philadelphia Light, and then mixed in two beaten eggs and 150ml crème fraiche.
Once the pastry had finished its first bake (I took the baking beans out after ten minutes and let it cook empty for another ten minutes), I put the filling in – once again I had a little too much – and put the whole thing back in the oven at 180 degrees Celsius to bake for half an hour. Et voila.
Substitutions/alterations: I actually forgot to put any chives in the custard, which was annoying as I actually have a live chive plant which I never use. And, as noted above, I couldn’t find any Roquefort in Asda (funnily enough) so I used Gorgonzola instead.
Verdict: Another lovely Mary Berry recipe: creamy and cheesy and not too strong, with these amazing occasional veins of salty blue cheese running through the custard. I might well make it again, but not for myself on my own: it’s a bit too much of a faff for that.
*Ooo-er. That’s what she said. I’m sorry, I just watched Russell T. Davies’ Midsummer Night’s Dream on iPlayer and am having difficulty curbing my emotions.
The English Student 