my version of a quiche...

i was rather smittened by the courgette quiche i had at the Guggenheim Cafe last week... i was tasting it in my dreams: the goats cheese and zucchini... alas i don't really know of any quiche recipes and the only few attempts (2 perhaps?!) i had in making one was with f's company and his recipe book's guidance...

but i do remember the packet of pastry dough i bought sometime ago that's been hibernating in the freezer... and i reckoned that perhaps i could concoct something of the cheesy filling... (this optimism usually surfaces when yours truly is in one of her silly creative moods...)

so i defrosted the dough... went out to the vegetable store near the bike co-op (had a tyre-puncture to fix!) to get some nice looking courgettes and some soft cheeses ... i got a little packet of Boursin with garlic and a tub of Emmentaler cream (my first time seeing this sort of thing) that was meant to be used for fondu! i found some fresh buttoncup mushrooms too and a few shallots... and a box of eggs.

i rolled some of the dough out on a flat work space dusted with some flour and with the help of a drinking glass that was long and slender enough (we don't have a rolling pin!) and laid it in my old little baking tin (i think it's an 8/10-inch tin) with a removable bottom (tricky fun) and had some of it over-flowing the sides of the tin. then i pre-heated the oven to about 200degC.

in my creative mood i had forgotten to keep track of how much of each ingredient i used... quite typical of me, quite unlike Chocolate and Zucchini's Clotilde who makes lovely treats and knows just what goes into them! oopsie.

anyways, in a lovely cream-coloured country bowl, i mixed 2 eggs, all the creams i bought, some flour (i think it was about 100-120g) and some milk (i think it was about 150-200ml) whisking it to a smooth-ish consistency. the mixture was thick enough but still runny.

then i layered the sliced courgettes (i used only one courgette) in the dough form and added some cheese mixture and did the same with the mushrooms (about 4) added more mixture and repeated with the courgettes for the last time. then i added some lightly browned shallots which i had sliced and quickly browned in some vegetable oil in a little pan... trying to hide most of them beneath the larger chunks of courgettes so they won't burn in the oven...

i had to bake it for quite a long time until the cheese mixture seemed firm enough and the pastry is cooked... i think it was sitting for almost an hour (possibly more) in the middle of the pre-heated oven... but it turned out really lovely, much to my own amusement... =c)

posted by ~overacuppa~ on Friday, 22 April, 2005 at 13:28 hrs