Quiche La Poodle

Notice: No actual poodles were involved in this dinner. Rather ... 

As regular readers of Nueva Receta will have realized, we often let the National Day Calendar inspire our culinary choices. The pandemic has affected this tendency in two somewhat contradictory ways. We are more likely to have spare time to browse the site, but we are also less likely to dash out to grab ingredients for a last-minute recognition of a made-up holiday. (Additional notice: all holidays are made up, but that is a discussion for, well, another day.)

Fortunately, Pam noticed National Quiche Lorraine Day before I set out for our weekly grocery run, so I I managed to get all the bacon and chives needed to do complete the main version found on the Simply Recipes Quiche Loriaine page. Writer Elise Bauer suggests several options for the crust (including a crust-free variation), so we of course turned to Deborah Madison's tome for a basic recipe.

The "we" in the previous sentence is a bit different this time -- our wonderful kid Harvey is here for a long visit. Since he watches British baking shows a lot, I pressed him into service! He made the pie crust with both wheat and white flour, salt, butter and a tiny bit of ice water. We put it in the fridge in our Pyrex pie plate, because I have learned that even on a mildly warm day, "room" temperature is the wrong temperature for a pie crust. I sat down to read the recipe with more care, and realized that we needed to put the pie in the oven earlier than I thought -- Bauer calls for it to bake for 40 minutes ahead of the filling. We came pretty close to this by the time we had other ingredients ready; we ignored the suggestions for pie weights, foil (which I do not even understand), and whatnot. The crust was beautiful, though Harvey thought it not quite as thin and uniform as he would have hoped.

I started cooking the bacon in our indispensable cast-iron skillet. In just the past year I have finally gotten good at this -- starting at medium high and gradually reducing the heat, removing each piece to drain when it reaches perfect doneness. While I did this, Harvey made the custard -- whisking five eggs very fresh from our friends at Maribett farm (the recipe calls only for three) and then adding the seasonings, milk, cream, and chives.

I shredded cheddar and Monterey jack cheeses together (Gruyere would have been even better, but we already had a lot of cheese in the house and decided we should use some of it) and put a small amount in the bottom of the crust. I then cut the bacon into 1/2-inch bits and distributed it evenly in the crust. We carefully poured the custard over this and put it in the oven. I turned around and discovered I had left most of the freshly-shredded cheese on the Gilligan (our kitchen island). I panicked a bit, because it should have been in the pan before the custard, so that the entire pie would be cheesy. Harvey advised calm, and suggested it might even be nice to have the cheesiness concentrated at the top. 

So I carefully added the cheese and set the oven timer for 30 minutes. At that time, the top looked perfect as Harvey had predicted, but I could tell that the custard was still a bit jiggly. Worried about over-cooking the top, I reduced the heat from 350F to 325F and set the timer for 15 more minutes. 

#RoundPieSquarePhoto

The ding-ding sounded again just as Pam finished a (rather dumb) Zoom meeting -- perfect timing! And this was the perfect meal to enjoy on our deck with some apple sauce on the side and Chardonnay in our glasses.

We followed this with some raspberry Entenmann's in honor of the attainment day of Pam's father Jack, who would have been 99 years old.

So what about that poodle, anyway?

I played the B52s song at the start of preparing this meal because it was not just a day to celebrate eggy custard pie (aka quiche), but also National Rescue Dog Day -- and this is a song about the singer's complicated relationship with his dog. As the people belonging to a rescue dog, we can certainly relate!