Monthly Archives: June 2012

Quiche Lorraine

Posted in Food, French, Recipes by

I am happy to report that my first attempt at making a proper quiche was a success. I have been devouring quiches for years now like there’s tomorrow and me attempting to make one from scratch was long overdue. Watching an episode of Masterchef Australia sparked my flame of quiche making. This one here is a Quiche Lorraine. I had Lily and D over for a French-themed dinner and Lily made it clear to me that she loooooves quiche Lorraine.

Menu for the night:

  • Entree – Mushroom soup
  • Main – Quiche Lorraine (recipe follows)
  • Dessert – Tarte au citron from La Galette de France in Subi sponsored by Lily
  • Drinks – Rekorderlig and Sangria sponsored by D (not really French but any alcohol would do)

Ingredients

Shortcut pastry
240 grams plain flour
125 grams butter, chilled and cut into cubes
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg
2-4 tablespoons (or more) cold water

Filling
3 tablespoons butter
1/2 onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 leek (white part and some green), roughly chopped
200 grams bacon, cut into small cubes
3/4 cup grated Gruyere cheese

Custard
3 eggs
2 egg yolks
300 ml cream

Makes 1 large quiche or 4-5 mini quiches

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celsius.
2. Lightly grease a large loose-bottom tart tin.

Make the pastry shells
3. In a food processor, add in flour, salt, and chilled butter and blend/pulse until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs. Add in egg and process until the mixture forms a ball. Add 1 tablespoon of cold water at a time if the mixture is not forming into a ball. Dump the dough onto a floured bench and need for about 1-2 minutes until it becomes a smooth dough. Shape the dough into a disk and wrap in plastic wrap and let it rest for 15 minutes in the fridge.

2. After the dough has rested, take it out of the fridge and work on a floured bench. Flatten the dough with your palms. Then using a rolling pin roll the dough until it is about 2-3mm thick. Ensure that it is bigger than your tin. Gently lift the dough and place it into your tart tin while gradually pressing the dough onto the tin. Ensure that you lightly press the dough to the shape of the tin including the bottom round edge.

3. To get that perfect fluted pattern (if using a fluted tin), instead of trimming the excess dough with a knife, I use a rolling pin to roll over the tin itself then peel off the excess dough. Dough will slightly shrink during baking so lightly press the dough on the side of the tin upwards – about 3-5mm higher than the tin. Then prick the base and sides of the dough with a fork.

4. Top the dough with a sheet of baking paper with loose sides that will be easy to lift out after baking. Fill the baking paper with uncooked rice or baking beads to serve as weights for the pastry shell.

5. Pop the pastry into the oven and bake for about 15 minutes. Then remove the baking paper and rice or baking beads and return the pastry into the oven and bake for a further 10-15 minutes until golden in colour.

*Pastry shell/s can be made in advance. I made mine 1 day prior to making the actual quiche. Let it cool completely and store in an airtight container or wrap with a plastic wrap.

Cook the filling
6. In a medium sized pan, melt the butter and cook the onions and leeks until onions are translucent and leeks are soft. Transfer the mixture onto a plate and set aside. In the same pan, cook the bacon until some of the fat has rendered and it starts browning. Add back the onion mixture and mix well to combine. Set aside.

Make the custard
7. In a medium bowl, whisk together egg, egg yolks, and cream until well combined.

Assemble the quiche
8. Spread the bacon, onion, and leek mixutre on the base of the cooked pastry shell. Pour in the egg mixture. Egg will shrink slightly after it’s baked so fill the whole pastry with the egg mixture up to the top of the shell but ensure that it doesn’t overflow. Then top with a generous amount of Gruyere cheese.

9. Carefully place the tin in the oven and bake at 200 degrees Celcius for 17 minutes. Drop the temperature to 160 degrees Celsius and continue baking for about 15-18 minutes until the custard is set. You can test this by inserting a toothpick into the centre of the quiche and if it comes out clean the quiche is set.

*Note that if making the mini quiche, baking time would be about 2-3 minutes less.

10. Take the quiche out of the tin and transfer to a serving plate.

11. Serve and enjoy.

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Origins @ East Perth (High Tea)

Posted in Food, High Tea by

I guess it was about time that I start testing out these high tea places in Perth for the upcoming hen’s night (or day) I’m supposed to be organising for my cousin’s wedding.

First up is Origins located inside the Pan Pacific Hotel. For $39 a head you get a selection of sweet and savoury treats plus unlimited tea or coffee and you can try different sorts of tea while you’re at it. Of course prices go up if you want to have some bubbly as well.

The ambiance is very nice inside – spacious, well lit, and very modern. I went my trusty partner in crime, Auntie C, and we chose a table with a pool view. A few minutes into sitting and we realised we should have just asked for a table with no views. The pool view we had was not a pretty sight; like a Bali holiday gone wrong.

It didn’t take long for us to choose our teas. They have the regular English breakfast, Earl Grey, Orange Pekoe those sort of teas but we both opted for something different (in my case at least). I had the Red African Sun tea while Auntie C had the Darjeeling tea. The teapots were huge and we started wondering how we are supposed to change our tea flavours halfway with so much leftover still sitting in the pot. But anyway that’s a problem for later.

We started off with a high tea “appetizer” as I’d like to call it since it did not come together with the other tiered food.

From left to right -

  • Truffle infused custard – very minimal truffle taste but otherwise a cute (and smart if they provided smaller spoons) way to serve the custard
  • Pea soup with mint foam – soup hardly had any taste
  • Fig and brie mousse en croute - you can never go wrong with figs and brie right? Now if only this was a little bit bigger

Then came the tiered treats.

A closer look at each plate..

Top tier: fruit scones, jam, and cream – delicious!!

Middle tier: savoury treats

  • Smoked salmon and cucumber mini bagels – taste is good but bagels are too hard
  • Roasted vegetables and goat’s cheese finger sandwiches – light and refreshing. I am more thankful that the goat’s cheese is not very prominent
  • Spinach and cumquat tart – needs more spinach and needs more taste. Tasted like an underseasoned plain quiche with a hint of cumquat peel.
  • WA king prawns and dipping sauce – fresh prawns with a light dipping sauce, something like a cross between tartare and thousand island dressing

Bottom tier: sweet treats

  • Carrot cake – underwhelming, really. I had one bite and left the rest. It doesn’t take like carrot cake and is too dry for a carrot cake.
  • Tiramisu – not too bad; creamy and had enough coffee taste
  • Sable chocolate and orange cake – Auntie Ching did not like this at all. I, on the other hand, liked it although it was way too sweet. Both flavours do go well togther.
  • Lemon verbena tart – this did not look like a tart at all. It looked and tasted more like an overly dense friand with a non-tangy lemon goo on top. I still am not sure what this was supposed to taste like.

We changed our teas to the Strawberry Tea before diving into the sweet treat. I must say that the teas were good.

Staff is very friendly and would come to your table from time to time to ask if everything is ok or not, or if you want to have more tea.

High Tea here is a hit and miss. I guess this venue is to be crossed off my list now because I don’t feel that the bride nor the guests would be too impressed.

My rating: 5.5/10

Potato Salad

Posted in Food, Modern Australian, Recipes by

Nothing like a load of creamy carbohydrates to fill you up. This potato salad here is a childhood favourite of mine sans bacon bits.

Ingredients

6-7 baby potatoes, peeled and sliced into 1-inch chunks
4-5 heaping tablespoons egg mayonnaise
2 tablespoons creme fraiche
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon wholegrain mustard
salt and pepper to taste
1 big stalk celery, sliced into small fine pieces
salad leaves (optional)

Method

1. Fill a medium stock pot with water and bring to a boil. Add potatoes and boil until soft, about 10-15 minutes. Test the doneness of the potatoes with a fork. If the fork gets through the potatoes easily then potatoes are ready.

2. Drain the potatoes and set aside to cool by soaking them in cold running water.

3. In a large mixing bowl, mix together mayonnaise, creme fraiche, Dijon mustard, and wholegrain mustard until well combined. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

4. Add in the celery and potatoes to the mayo mixture and mix until all potatoes are covered in dressing.

5. Leave to rest for a few minutes before serving so that the dressing thickens up a bit.

6. Serve on a bed of salad (if desired) and enjoy.

 

Serves 3-4 people

Cream of mushroom soup

Posted in Food, French, Recipes by

Reminiscing the cream of mushroom soup I had in Toronto’s Biff’s Bistro, I made my own version last night. I’m trying to watch my calorie intake these days so my version is not as creamy as I would have loved it to be. Instead of using heavy cream I added a few dollops of creme fraiche instead to make it rich.

The recipe below gives about 4 bowls of heart-warming soup.

Ingredients

1/4 cup olive oil, or 1/2 stick butter
1/2 onion, cubed
5 cups coarsely chopped mushrooms of different varieties (I used a mixture of button and Swiss brown cap mushrooms)
1 litre (4 cups) stock (chicken or vegetable)
1 cup heavy cream, or 3-4 tablespoons creme fraiche
salt and pepper to taste
parsley (to garnish)

Method

1. In a medium sized stock pot, melt butter and saute onions until soft. Add in mushrooms and saute until soft (about 5-7 minutes).

2. Add in stock and bring to a boil. Once boiling, lower heat to medium. Continue boiling for 10-15 minutes.

3. When mushrooms are completely soft, turn off the heat. Using a handheld blender blitz the soup until mushrooms are finely blended. Alternatively, you can use a blender and pour soup back in the pot after blending. Bring the soup back to a simmer and add the heavy cream or creme fraiche. Mix well until cream is evenly mixed into the soup. Season with salt and pepper.

4. Serve in bowls and garnish with a few leaves of parsley if desired.