CHICKEN AND PEPPER QUICHE

Great for breakfast, brunch, lunch, snack or dinner.

Serves: 8

Baking tin: 9″ – 10″ loose bottom flan tin

Ingredients for the Pie dough:

• Flour – 200 grams
• Cold hard butter cut into tiny cubes – 95 grams, cut the butter into bits and chill it for an hour.
• Egg – 1, yolk and white separated and lightly beaten
• Chilled milk – 5 tablespoons
• Salt – ½ teaspoon

Method for the tart shell:

• Grease and dust the sides of a 9″ flan tin. Use a circle of baking paper on the base of the tin.
• Before you begin, bear in mind that the less you handle this dough, the better it turns out. Do not knead it as you would bread or roti dough.
• To a food processor with a dough hook, mix the flour and salt.
• Next, drop in the cold hard butter cubes and process to a grainy mix. (don’t worry about cold butter bits as long as they are no larger than a pea.)
• Add egg yolk and milk and mix until just combined.
• Turn the contents on to a sheet of shrink wrap (large enough to wrap the dough and refrigerate) and very gently with both hands gather and press down the mix into a thickish square or disc. Do not knead this dough as you would bread or roti dough.

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• Put all the dough on a sheet of cling film, wrap the dough tightly and chill it for 1 hour.
• While the dough is chilling make the Filling for your quiche.
• Once you’re done with making the filling, pull the chilled dough out of the refrigerator, take off the cling film and roll the dough into a disk a little less than a ¼” thick.
• Using the rolling pin load the dough on to the prepared flan tin as shown below.

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• Gently press the dough into the edges of the tin. Clean up by running the rolling pin over the top of the tin.
• Poke the base of the dough with a fork and again refrigerate the pastry in the tart tin for an hour. It has to be well chilled before baking.

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• Blind bake the chilled pastry at 190°C for 25 minutes or until golden brown.
• While still hot brush the tart shell with the saved beaten egg white (it helps create a bit of a seal) before pouring in the quiche filling.

Ingredients for the Quiche filling:

• Eggs – 4
• Fresh Cream – ½ cup
• Grated cheese – ¾ cup
• Boneless Chicken cut into bite-size pieces – 450 grams
• Pepper powder – ½ teaspoon
• Garlic flakes chopped fine – 2 teaspoons
• Onions – 3, chopped
• Celery – 1 stick, chopped
• Chopped Red pepper – ¼ cup
• Chopped Red pepper – ¼ cup
• Chopped Capsicum – ½ cup
• Chopped Parsley – 1 tablespoon
• Dried thyme – ¼ teaspoon
• Basil leaves – 2, roughly torn
• Chopped Jalapenos – 1 tablespoon
• Grated carrot – ¼ cup
• Butter – 1 tablespoon
• Oil – ½ teaspoon
• Salt to taste

Method for the filling:

• In a large bowl beat the eggs, fresh cream, a little salt and pepper. Set aside for later.
• To a heavy-bottomed saucepan, on medium heat, add butter and oil followed by chopped chicken, pepper powder, garlic, onion and celery. Cook until the chicken is done and dry.
• Take the saucepan off the heat and mix in the peppers, grated carrot, parsley, thyme, basil, chopped jalapenos and half the grated cheese.

• Add the chicken mix to the beaten eggs and cream along with half the grated cheese. Mix well and pour the filling into the tart shell. Top up with the remaining grated cheese.
• Bake the quiche at 160° for 40 – 45 minutes until to top turns brown.

Notes:

• Alternatives to:
  • Chicken – chopped cooked mushroom, cooked boneless mutton cubes or mince.
  • Peppers – cooked green peas and carrots
• You can add pretty much anything to your quiche, however, ensure that you pre-cook all the add-ins so as to reduce the moisture content.
• Save time by making the dough for the tart shell a day ahead.
• *Baking Blind – Crush a piece of baking paper, spread it out onto the chilled tart shell and drop in some baking beans. You basically need something to weigh down on the tart shell to prevent it from puffing up. If you haven’t any baking beans, use any dried beans that you have at hand. The beans are useless after that, but you can store them in a jar for the next time you need to blind bake a tart shell.