Cooking with David

This recipe was adapted from a recipe by Emeril Lagasse. My wife does the primary cooking of this quiche, but I help prepare the ingredients (e.g., chopping the onion, cooking the bacon).

9-inch pie shell in a pie tin or pie plate
4-5 strips of thick-sliced bacon, cooked and chopped
3 cups coarsely chopped yellow onion
1/2 pound chopped mushrooms
2 tsp minced thyme
2-3 garlic cloves
5 extra-large eggs
1 cup (not packed) shredded Swiss cheese
1/2 cup "½-and-½" (milk and cream)
pepper
olive oil

Using a garlic press, mash the garlic.

Pre-heat the oven to 375°F.

Cook the onion over a medium flame in a very large frying pan in olive oil until it slightly begins to color. Add the mushrooms, thyme, and garlic. Continue cooking until most of the moisture from the mushrooms has evaporated and the mushrooms begin to color.

When the bacon is cool, layer it into the pie shell.

In a bowl and using a wire whip, thoroughly combine the eggs and ½-and-½. Stir in the shredded cheese.

When the onion, mushroom, and herb mixture has cooled for about 10 minutes, spoon it over the bacon in the pie shell. Pour the egg, ½-and-½, and cheese mixture over the onion, mushroom, and herb mixture.

Place the quiche in the oven, on a rimmed cookie sheet. After about 20 minutes, rotate the quiche. Bake until the top is light brown and the custard has set (about 35 to 40 minutes total).

Allow the quiche to cool for about 10 minutes before serving.

While preparing the ingredients, you will likely think that this will not all fit into the pie shell. Relax. The onion, mushroom, and herb mixture shrinks significantly while in the frying pan. A very large frying pan is needed so that the excess moisture from the onion and mushrooms has a large area from which to evaporate.

Lagasse's recipe involved frying the bacon and then cooking the onion, mushroom, and herb mixture in some of the rendered bacon fat. There is enough cholesterol in this quiche without that. We only use olive oil to cook the other ingredients. We cook the bacon on a plastic grid in my microwave oven, which allows all the fat to drain away as the bacon cooks. If you have thin-sliced bacon, use about 6 or 7 slices. The cooked bacon might crumble when chopping it; that is okay. Lagasse also used heavy cream; ½-and-½ has less cholesterol without sacraficing the quality of the result.

The original recipe called for 5 large eggs. The most recent time we made this quiche, we only had extra-large eggs. Using a guide to egg sizes foud on the Web, we determined that slightly less than 4.5 extra-large eggs equals 5 large eggs. We use 5, which we found was not too many. If you have jumbo eggs, however, use only 4.

The original recipe called for shredding Gruyère cheese, layered on top of all the other ingredients. Instead, we use a pre-shredded blend of Gruyère and Emmental stirred into the egg and ½-and-½ mixture. Mixing the cheese with the egg and ½-and-½ prevented the cheese from forming a gooey layer on top of the quiche. After assembling the quiche, we lifted it about 1 to 2 inches and dropped it several times; this helped to distribute the egg and ½-and-½ mixture into the lower layers.

My wife used the "toothpick test" to see if the quiche was done. Stick a toothpick or cake tester into the center. If it comes out clean, the quiche is done.

We used a frozen pie shell from the supermarket. It was good. If you are concerned about your pie shell becoming soggy from the quiche filling, use a trick shown on TV by Julia Child. Place a pie plate or tin inside the pie shell. Turn the whole thing over and lift off the original plate or tin into which the shell was resting. Keeping everything upside down, bake the shell in the 375°F oven for about 5 minutes. Remove the shell from the oven and allow it to cool just enough to handle. Place the original pie plate or tin over the shell. Turn everything back right-side-up, and remove the plate or tin that is now inside the shell. Warning: Be careful when buying frozen pie shells. The "house brand" pie shell at a local supermarket proved to be quite sticky. After pre-baking it, it stuck to the pie tin inside, creating a messy, broken pie shell. We have not had this problem with Marie Callender pie shells.

It is important to allow the rest of the filling and pie shell to cool somewhat before adding the egg, ½-and-½, and cheese mixture. Otherwise, the egg will curdle from contact with heat. Each item will cool most quickly if kept separate. If they are slightly warm, that will be okay.

Cooking with David

Cheese, Onion, Mushroom, and Bacon Quiche

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