Renaissance Quiche Loraine ‘Majestueuse’

When my parents came back from a journey through France visiting the famous castles and mansions located along the big river ‘Loire’ across the land, they brought to me a very small cook book – ‘The Cuisine Of The Kings’ including original Renaissance recipes made ‘cookable’ nowadays by a nutrition scientist. Not more than 16 recipes: Fantastic ones! But also – a lot effort in ingredients (means: money. Kings!) and time for preparation and cooking. ‘Quiche Loraine’ (express: ‘keash lorane’) is eventually ‘the’ traditional dish of France, a sand cake mainly with onions and bacon – done originally you would work about 7 hours on it (on two days). I’ve done it (almost) the original way once because I like to try such things but for everyday’s cuisine I simplified it. So this is now very easy to do – having basic cooking skills you’re done in 25 minutes for preparation and another 20 for baking. However – ‘she’ is one of my top favorite dishes – Quiche Loraine smells and tastes unbelievably delicious, the more when you do this extra effort for the ‘Majestueuse’ decoration. Voilá!

Supplies

plate, porcelan or glass ~ 23 cm

dough

130 g flour (any kind) + a bit for preparing the plate
65 g butter + a bit …
1/2 egg (scranbled)

following: each ~ 1-2 hands full

spring onion (orig: shallots)
carrots, yellow and orange
paprika
litte tomatoes (cocktail t.)
bacon, ~ 200g
cheese (La Gruyére, Gouda, Emmentaler, at least a hard cheese)
olive oil

Creme Royale

Creme fresh (sour cream), 200 ml (gr)
3-4 eggs

Spices

Herbes de Provence – a ready made mixture, incl. lavender!
Nutmeg (muskat nut)
pepper

Step 1: Preparing the Plate

Spread a little piece of butter all over the plate (with your hand) – making a thin film. Take 1-2 tablespoons of flour and spread it by softly jiggling - shaking - tapping the plate with both hands holding it a bit diagonally while slowly rotating it horizontally. Sounds evil? But isn’t – if you’ve never done: You’ll find ‘how-to’-videos on the internet. At least it is really easy :-)

Step 2: Making the Dough ‘Short Pastry – Mürbteig’

Put together flour and butter, scramble 1 egg, add half of the mass – the rest we use for Creme Royale. Add a mini squirt of water (≤ 1cl) and mix up roughly and quickly with your hands. Important to know and understand: Such kind of ‘sand cake dough’ – short pastry – works best when everything is NOT blended homogenous but only roughly. When done, give some minutes (5-10) to rest … before pre-baking. Take a drink, why not? :-) Meanwhile you can start cutting the veggies … (the step after the next)

Step 3: Roll Out the Dough + Pre-bake

Put dough on the plate and spread with your hands – this is a bit like sculpting with clay! So let’s sculpt Lorain’s ground – dash in some additional flour for keeping the flour not sticky. Perforate with a fork – for letting the air under the dough go through while pre-baking (no bubbles). Pre-bake for 6-10 minutes at 230°C.

Step 4: Clean the Veggies + a Colourful Tip!

Clean the veggies as usual.

Tip:
Boil some water (~ 0,75 l) and water the veggies with it. Doing so they intense their colors immediately and will keep during baking process!

Step 5: Cutting the Veggies

… onion, tomatoes in 1/2 or 1/4), carrots and red paprika: long and small. I forgot to photograph everything, sorry!

Step 6: Cutting the Bacon

… yeah! Looks like this.

Step 7: Rubbing John Cleese …

… correction: the cheese, indeed!

Step 8: Making ‘Creme Royale’ …

… and pre-baking of the short pastry is done now – out of the coven!

The making of Creme Royale is the only really such a bit tricky procedure: Mix up ‘creme fresh’ (~ 200 ml) or sour cream with 3-4 eggs (smaller –> more). Done.

Step 9: Placing ‘Sub Layer’ Ingredients

The ingredients of the sub layer will be not (so much) visible later – those are: onions and bacon. Onto!

Step 10: Woohooo – Flood the Plate!

… with ‘Creme Royale’: Woom!

Step 11: Heaven on Earth: Herbes De Provence

‘Herbs de Provence’ is ›the‹ ready made mixture of (originally) France spices including lavender (from the France region ‘Provence’) and another 6-10 ingredients. Combined with nutmeg this will generate the typical and genius scent and taste of the Quiche. Add as much as you like – I would warmly recommend: Not too ‘economical’!

Step 12: Beautiful Decoration: ‘The Onion Crown’ + Baking

Decorate the flooded plate with the rest of the veggies, have in mind: building symmetries is the nice and simple trick – I made it like a clock!

Spice up a bit again and sprinkle some drops of olive oil – if you like. Put into the (pre heated at 230°C) oven and reduce temperature immediately to ~180°C. Bake for 20-25 minutes.

Tipp: The Onion Crown

Make 4 cuts into a little onion but do only cut ‘almost through’ – so the onion is still complete. Place it in the middle of your spacey UFO as it would be the cockpit: This is the onion crown of the Quiche! Put some drops olive oil on it: While baking it will open a bit or sometimes widely … looking very nice!