Crustless pies and me are not good friends. I ignore their existence and they ignore mine, and in my eyes, this is a great relationship in this case. It’s just that a person that loves pastries in all shapes and forms such as myself, simply cannot enjoy just the filling of what could be a great quiche.
For Sharon’s (my sister in law as of last Wednesday) bachelorette party, I was asked to bring a crustless pie. Instinctively I started looking for a good quiche recipe. Since the primacy and recency effects work so well, I’ve decided to make this goat cheese and dried tomatoes quiche, which I last made only a week before that, when 2 very good friends of hours - Hadas and Yaron - came over for lunch.
This quiche recipe caught my eye in a very good Israeli pastry cookbook called “Sheshet pastries”. I was caught mostly because of its beautiful photo in the book, but also because of how simple it is to make it look so beautiful. Also, it tastes wonderful, and the recipe is very accurate, as are all the recipes I’ve tried from that book.
Some notes and tips about this quiche:
* Dried tomatoes - in Israel we have 2 kinds - marinated in olive oil or plain and simple dried tomatoes. Both are great for this quiche, but if you use the plain ones, marinate or brush them with a little olive oil before using them, so the ones that peek out from the filling will not burn during baking.
* Tips about making shortcrust can be found in the tips section of this post.
Goats cheese and dried tomatoes quiche / “Sheshet Pastries” cookbook
Makes a 10 inch quicheIngredients:
For the crust:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 flat tsp salt
150 gr cold butter, diced
1 egg
1-2 Tbsp water, if neededFor the filling:
250 ml heavy cream
3 eggs
1 Tbsp all-purpose flour
salt
black pepper
1/2 cup dried tomatoes, chopped
200 gr soft goats cheese, sliced
cherry tomatoes brushed with olive oil, for decorationDirections:
1. Prepare the crust: Process flour, salt and butter in short pulses in the food processor, until crumbly. Add in the egg and process in pulses only until a dough is formed. If the mixture is still crumbly, add in the water and process in pulses just until a dough is formed.
2. Flaten the dough, and form a flat circle out of it, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for one hour.
3. Roll out the dough to a 1/2 cm thick sheet, cover the tart pan with it. Using a fork, make even holes over the whole bottom surface. Freeze for 20 minutes.
4. Preheat oven to 350F (180C).
5. Blind bake the crust for about 10-15 minutes (it’s recommended to do it with some baking weights, for more info see tips here), until the crust only starts becoming golden.
6. Take the crust out of the oven and let cool. Meanwhile prepare the filling:
7. Beat the heavy cream together with the eggs. Sift the flour over the mixture, and beat until the mixture is uniform. Add in salt and pepper and mix them well.
8. Place the chopped dried tomatoes and sliced cheese onto the crust. Pour the egg mixture above it and decorate with the cherry tomatoes.
9. Bake for about 35 minutes, or until the filling is firm and golden.
