Video guide to making an English breakfast quiche
What better way to start your morning than with an English breakfast quiche, a modern take on an old favourite. Now this quiche has a creamy set, which is a little bit different from a usual ready-made quiche. It has two main steps, the pastry base and the filling, with all those lovely tasty ingredients, like tomatoes, mushrooms and bacon.
Make the pastry base
So I'm going to start with the pastry base and I've got 300g of plain flour, which I'm going to add to the food processor. I've got half a teaspoon of salt and I've got 150g of cubed butter, which has been chilled from the fridge. Now if you haven't got a food processor, that's fine, you can just use your hands to rub the butter into the flour. So I'm going to pulse this and what I'm looking for is a breadcrumb-like consistency.
So that looks perfect, so I'm going to add in my egg yolk and I'm going to add four tablespoons of cold water and I'm going to pulse that until it comes together as a dough.
So that looks perfect so I'm going to flour my surface and turn out the dough. I'm going to make it into a ball and then I'm going to roll it out until it's half a centimetre thick.
Roll the pastry
So that's looking good. I've got a 25cm, 10 inch loose-bottomed tart tin. I'm just going to measure it so I know I've definitely got an overhang all the way around, and yes, I have. Now, a tip for picking up your pastry to put it on to the tart tin is, using a rolling pin, just gently roll it over and you can pick it up with relative ease. Bring that towards me and then I can layer it over. Give it a little wiggle, it helps it settle in, and then roll it out. What you want to do, you want to push the sides in really gently, just to get all the pastry into the corners and ensure all the filling sits nicely in the base.
So now I'm going to prick the base with a fork and this needs to chill in the fridge for around 10 minutes.
Blind bake the pastry
So my base has been chilling for 10 minutes. Of course, I've made the pastry today but of course you can pre buy a pastry case so you don't have to make the pastry. I've preheated my oven to 200 degrees, and that's 180 if it's fan assisted and what I'm going to do now is blind bake the pastry case. Now, what that actually means is I'm going to use baking paper; and a really easy way to do this is to scrunch it all up and lay it on the base. I'm using baking beans but if you don't have baking beans at home, you could always used dried pasta. What this actually does is it flattens the pastry and makes sure it doesn't rise during cooking. This is going in the oven for 15 minutes.
Cook the bacon and mushrooms
So now I'm going to cook my bacon and mushrooms. What I've got here is eight slices of streaky bacon, which I've cut in half. So I'm going to turn my pan on to a medium heat and then add in the olive oil, about a tablespoon will do. And put the bacon in. The reason I'm actually frying the bacon off, because it will be cooking in the oven as well, is because it brings out the flavour and it crisps it up, gives it that nice texture.
So that's looking great, so I'm going to move the bacon onto my plate and I've got 10 Forestiere mushrooms which I'm going to add to the same pan, so all the juices combine and give that lovely flavour. I'm going to cook these mushrooms for about three minutes, or until they've softened.
I've blind baked the pastry case for 15 minutes then took it out of the oven and removed the baking beans and the parchment paper. I then baked it again for 10 minutes, until it was golden brown. So it's cooled now and I'm going to trim the edges just to make it look nice and neat.
OK, so I'm just going to remove the excess pastry and I'm going to line the base with two to three tablespoons of tomato ketchup. And I'm just smoothing it all the way round, so the whole surface is covered.
I've got three tomatoes that I've halved and I'm going to place them all around the base. So now it's time to add my bacon and my mushrooms and I'm scattering them round. So that's looking great.
Add the creamy filling
Now I've got 300ml of double cream and two large eggs which I'm going to add to it and whisk, I'm also going to season with some salt and pepper. Get that mixed up. So that's looking perfect. Now, before I pour it in, what I'm going to do is bring in a baking tray because I don't want to pour it in without having some stability and this will allow me to take it over to the oven without spilling in anything.
So I'm just pouring it in. I'm pouring it in in one corner and letting it spread through the base and covering the ingredients, not completely covering; you can still see some of the tomatoes, mushrooms and bacon.
So the oven's on 200 degrees, or 180 if it's fan assisted, and I'm going to bake this for around 25 to 30 minutes, until the egg is set and it's nice and golden.
Prepare to serve the English breakfast quiche
So here's my quiche, it's completely cooled. A really good tip for getting it out of the tin is to take a bowl, turn it upside down. You can also use a jam jar, as well by the way. Place it on top, carefully and just allow the tin to drop down. I'm going to take it over to my stand and gently place it on top.
And there you have it, English breakfast quiche, absolutely delicious.