April 8, 2020

SAUSAGE AND POTATO QUICHE

 
A quiche is a good way to use up leftovers.
 
This comes under the general heading of fridge bottom quiche, in other words, filling a pastry case with whatever you have left over and making it into a really tasty dish.  It can be either a light meal with some salad or a main meal with added veg, bread, etc.
 
Interestingly, apart from a brief encounter in Aldi a couple of weeks back, I haven't seen ordinary flour on the supermarket shelves for a while.  However, when I made a quick smash and grab shopping expedition to Tesco at the weekend (just after lunchtime on Sunday and it was very quiet) there was no flour but plenty of packs of ready made pastry.  Just what you need for a quiche.
 
 
The main ingredient for this one (which I made last year as it happens) is some slices of that delicious smoked sausage you get in France called Morteau.  There are other smoked sausages and in the UK I would use some Matteson's, the u-shaped sausage readily available in supermarkets.  In reality any cooked sausage will do.
 
This time I used a rather swish long and narrow tart tin but as you can see, the ready made, ready rolled pastry was not quite the right shape and there had to be a join.  Nobody seemed to notice!
 
 
Other ingredients were some sliced leftover small potatoes, a fried chopped onion and a handful of leftover cooked broad beans.
 
 
The final ingredient was some sliced very ordinary goat's cheese then the usual egg mixture.  I often add a little grated Emmental but on this occasion I didn't. 
By the way, did you know that you can still make a perfectly delicious savoury tart or quiche if you have no eggs at all?  You make the filling from a kind of white sauce instead and I wrote about it once before here.
 

 
This particular quiche was notable for two things.  Firstly it was declared by my brother, who was staying with us on holiday at the time, to be the best quiche he had ever eaten.  Secondly for the fact that it was very nearly an upside down smoked sausage quiche as in removing it from the tin I somehow managed to tip it out onto the board the wrong way up.  It only just missed ending up on the floor but with two of us and various fish slices we managed to turn it back the right way up completely intact.
 
Ingredients
 
1 pack of ready made, ready rolled pastry (or make your own if you have the flour)
1 onion, peeled and chopped
a few slices of smoked sausage
3-4 small potatoes, cooked and sliced (not too thin as they could break up)
a handful of leftover cooked broad beans (you could use broccoli, asparagus, or French beans)
a chunk of goat's cheese, cut into 6-8 slices (you could use slices of virtually any cheese)
3 eggs
a dollop of cream or crème fraîche
about 250ml milk, semi skimmed or full fat
 
Method
 
Butter a tart tin with a removable base, 23cm round or oblong.  Unroll the pastry and line the tin with it.  Line with baking paper, fill with baking beans and blind bake at 180° fan for 15 minutes.
 
Fry the onion in a little oil until lightly browned and soft. 
 
Remove the tart tin from the oven, remove the paper and baking beans and turn the oven down to 160° fan.  Arrange the sliced sausage over the tart base.  Scatter the onions, then the beans, then the potatoes evenly over the sausage.  Finally top with the sliced cheese.
 
Put the eggs into a large jug and beat.  Add the cream or crème fraîche and mix together.  Season with salt and pepper then make up to 350ml with the milk.  Beat together to combine thoroughly and pour gently over the filling in the tart.  It's best to have a little left over than to over fill.
 
Bake for 25-30 minutes until the filling is puffed up, lightly browned and almost set with a slight wobble. 
 
Remove from the oven and set aside before serving warm.  The filling will settle down and set completely.
 
Serves 6.

2 comments:

  1. I bought two of those long, loose bottomed rectangular tins about 30 years ago - an offer from Good Housekeeping. They've proved SO useful. So easy to cut portions, and to serve (assuming one doesn't invert the thing accidentally!) I'm currently cooking a sweet quiche/flan using all leftovers (half an egg, half a can of evap, and a few chopped grapes and half a banana, and some pastry)

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  2. This is the perfect sort of food for a difficult time. Definitely my sort of food. You've reminded me that I had a long, thin tart tin a few years ago but I've no idea where it's gone now. I really should clear out my cupboards.

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