Cornmeal Crust Quiche

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So, ten days later, here's my post for July's Daring Cook's Challenge, which was essentially just "Cornmeal!"

That was pretty open ended, so I made this quiche and I made a delicious cake while I shall also post presently. Both were good. The cake was better. The slight grittiness that the cornmeal lends to a crust is so nice, though. I bet this quiche recipe would have been the winner if instead of filling the crust with eggs and bacon and veggies, I'd filled it with caramel and pecans and chocolate. I am a dessert monster.

Cornmeal Crust Recipe

(It came from Bon Appétit, the home of all good things.)

You'll need: 

1 cup AP flour

3/4 cup cornmeal

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, cubed

3 tablespoons lard

3 to 4 tbsp water

Whisk together the dry ingredients. Toss in the cubbed butter and the lard, and use whatever method you like to cut it in until you get a coarse crumb consistency. My favourite method is to squish it in with my cold fingers, as I've mentioned in the past. You might own a fancy food processor, and so might want to pulse it together quickly in there. Once you've got your coarse crumbs, add enough water that they come together into a dough. Wrap it in plastic and chill it in the fridge overnight.

When you're ready to make your quiche, preheat the oven to 400F, grease your pie plate or tart pan, and roll your dough out between two sheets of parchment into a 12-ish inch circle-ish thing. Fit your dough into your dish. In case this is the first time you've done this: Remove one sheet of parchment, use the second to help you move the dough into the dish, and then remove that too. Don't bake the crust in the parchment. Try to fill in any cracks (I always have cracks). If you're making this in a pie plate, fold the excess dough under the edge to make a double crust and crimp it. I made it in a tart pan, so I just used my rolling pin to knock off the excess. I think I also blind baked it a bit before filling it (you can tell by the way the dough has shrunk down on the sides in the photo below), but you don't have to.

Fill it with whatever you want and then bake it. I used (cooked) bacon bits, Gruyere cheese, and onion, red pepper and broccoli that I'd softened in the bacon fat. I think I added five eggs that had been whisked with salt, pepper, Worcestershire sauce and cream. The original recipe suggests 55 minutes (!) in the oven. I think I baked mine for 35 minutes and I definitely over-cooked it. I imagine the difference is that the original recipe uses a pie plate that is much deeper. So, keep an eye on your quiche and take it out of the oven when the centre is still a bit jiggly. However, do not fear if you overcook it because well-done quiche happens to be really good cold the next day.

"Rachael of pizzarossa was our August 2012 Daring Cook hostess and she challenged us to broaden our knowledge of cornmeal! Rachael provided us with some amazing recipes and encouraged us to hunt down other cornmeal recipes that we’d never tried before – opening our eyes to literally 100s of cuisines and 1000s of new-to-us recipes!"