Food : Spinach & Tomato Quiche

Spinach & Tomato Quiche

This is so lovely & colourful with fresh taste quiche, ideal for picnics and/or parties

Never Fail Piecrust:

Ingredients: makes enough for 26-28cm diameter pie dish

240g all-purpose flour
1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
1/2 t sugar
¼ tsp cinnamon
120g butter
1 egg yolk
1/2 t cider vinegar
+/- 80ml cold water

Sieve together flour, baking powder, salt, sugar & cinnamon. Add chopped up butter and beat until mixture is crumbly. In a small bowl, beat egg well and it to dough. Add vinegar to water and start to pour it over flour-butter mixture bit by bit ... as soon as the dough hold together stop adding water, the dough should be dry on the crumbly side rather than wet. Form dough into ball, wrap it in plastic and put it in the fridge for an hour.

Roll out the ball of dough on a floured surface until it's a big enough round to fit your pie plate. Roll dough round onto your rolling pin and unroll again into a 6-28cm pie plate or tart pan with removal bottom. If dough tears, just press it together again with your fingers. Form decorative edge and pierce it all over with fork. Put the dough again in the fridge to shrink while you prepare the filling. 

Blind bake the shell for 12-20 minutes at 180-190c degrees by covering with foil and placing pie weights in the center to hold the pastry in place. Do not keep opening the oven door while baking, after it is baked switch the oven off and open the oven door slightly leaving the crust pie inside the oven to cool and make it more crispy

Ingredients for the filling:

1 tsp olive oil

200g spinach, prefers fresh -  if you can only gets frozen then note that frozen tends to be stringy so you need   to chop it very fine and make sure you squeeze out all the water in the leaves, otherwise the tart will be soggy. 

3 garlic cloves - finely chopped

3 eggs 

70-100ml milk

250g tub ricotta cheese 

1 tbsp grated Parmesan

1 tsp mustard powder

¼ tsp salt

1/8 tsp black pepper or nutmeg

12 cherry tomatoes cut in halves 

Method:

1. Cut your cherry tomatoes in half and sprinkle with kosher salt and a tiny bit of olive oil to coat. Set aside

2. sweat the spinach & garlic in olive oil and keep aside

3. mix mustard powder with milk first to avoid mustard powder lumps

4. whisk the eggs and add milk, ricotta cheese, Parmesan, salt, black pepper or nutmeg

5. make sure that the spinach are cold before you add it the custard mixture otherwise you will have an omelet  

6. Remove foil from the tart shell and pour your custard into prebaked pie shell. 

7. scatter cherry tomato halves or the sliced plum tomatoes on the top of the tart and grind with black pepper or nutmeg

8. bake in 180c oven for 30 - 45 minutes until puffed and golden