June 7, 2011

WILD GARLIC AND MUSHROOM QUICHE

Dom of Belleau Kitchen posted this recipe a few weeks ago.

When I was a child we lived near woods that were full of wild garlic.  It never occurred to me that anyone would want to eat it.  In fact the smell of the garlic was so pungent that my parents always referred to the plants as “stinking nannies”.  Nobody in their right minds would surely use anything with such a horrible name for cooking !! 

wild garlic 1

I was intrigued by the fact that the recipe uses the leaves, not the bulbs, as in regular garlic.

A couple of days after I saw Dom’s recipe, we were walking the dog on one of our favourite walks and came across a patch of wild garlic.  So we picked some.  Being very fond of making quiches, I was looking forward to having a go at the recipe.

wild garlic 2wild garlic 3

You fry the vegetables as you normally would for a quiche filling, then place the wild garlic leaves on top to wilt briefly, as if you were cooking spinach.

In Dom’s picture, the garlic leaves were on top of the other ingredients when filling the pastry case, but for some reason I decided to put them underneath.  It worked fine.

wild garlic 4wild garlic 5

It produced a very filling and delicious quiche and it was of course, ideal for vegetarians.  Or for people like us who eat quite a lot of meat-free food, just because we enjoy it.

On our walk we picked quite a lot of garlic as I hadn’t taken much notice of how much was needed to make the quiche.  It only uses a “handful” so I had at least twice as much as I needed.  So I gave half of it to my French friend who made a quiche, froze it and served it to her mother when she came over to the UK for a few days.  Apparently the lady was much impressed.  Et voilà!!

Ingredients

For the pastry case

8oz plain flour (or half plain, half wholemeal)

4oz butter or margarine

1tsp salt

cold water to mix

For the filling

a large handful of freshly picked wild garlic leaves, washed

a bunch of spring onions, finely chopped

one large leek, finely sliced

a dozen chestnut mushroom, finely sliced

butter and olive oil for frying

300 ml double cream

150g cream cheese

4 eggs

Method

Make the pastry in the usual way and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 180°C

Roll out the pastry to fit a flan or quiche tin or dish.  Bake blind for about 20 minutes until golden.  Turn the oven temperature up to 190°C.

In plenty of butter and olive oil, sauté the onions and leeks until soft, then add the mushrooms.  Cook for a little longer until the mushrooms are soft and slightly browned.  Add salt and pepper, turn off the heat and place the garlic leaves on top.  Cover the pan and let the leaves wilt until soft, just like spinach.

Whisk together the eggs and cream, add the cream cheese and whisk again.

Tip the sautéed vegetables into the pastry case and spread out evenly.  Pour the egg mixture on top.  Return to the oven and bake for 25-30 minutes until risen and golden brown.

Serves 6-8

3 comments:

  1. oh so glad it worked for you!!!!... looks so amazing, i'm really hungry now!... fabulous stuff!

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  2. Looks really good - wild garlic is lovely stuff. I collected a carrier bag full of leaves a while ago and then decided to go shopping on the way home. I can confirm that people definitely make way for you in crowded shops if you're carrying enough wild garlic.

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  3. I love quiches so this sounds fantastic to me. Have you seen wild garlic in France I don't think I have ever noticed any? Diane

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