Mom’s main course
Many people will be making reservations for the upcoming Mother’s Day meal, but if you want to whip up something homemade to serve Mom (along with flowers, a card, gifts and your undying love), quiche is an excellent choice.
Yes, you can buy a ready-made quiche at many local bakeries and grocery stores, but homemade is a more personal way to celebrate the woman who gave you life. You can make the quiche the day before in order to have more time to lavish on Mom on her actual day.
Chef/owners Eric Masson of The Brentwood and Heidi Vukov of Croissants Bistro & Bakery, both aficionados of quiche, offer these tips for making this egg custard savory at home.
“We will be serving quiche on Mother’s Day – filling it with whatever is fresh that week,” Vukov said. “You can add just about anything you have on hand.”
For the home cook, “I suggest you beat your eggs a bit and whip your cream separately before folding the two together,” she said. “This will make your quiche fluffier. Occasionally, we even add seafood like shrimp and crab meat to make a seaside heartier and richer quiche. The possibilities are endless.”
Masson said The Brentwood also will be open for Mother’s Day brunch and dinner.
“A quiche is basically a cooked custard,” he said. “Using the basic recipe, you can add any ingredients to make it a different delicious dining option each time. Quiche is a nice, light entree for brunch or lunch or dinner, and is easy to make. In France, it is a choice for every meal – often sold in pastry shops to take away.”
Both Vukov and Masson advocate serving the quiche with a light green salad or fruit. Vukov adds herbs to the quiche crust to emphasize its savory nature.
The trickiest part of any quiche is the crust. If making a pie crust seems daunting, there are “pre-mades” available. However, in the words of my daughter, Jennie, “Crust is not hard to do if you follow a few simple rules.”
“Be sure to mix the shortening with the flour until you get bead-sized pieces,” she said. “Be sure the added water is cold. Roll out the dough just once if you can. Good crust is worked as little as possible.”
For those who want to avoid a crust at all, a frittata is basically a crustless quiche. Unlike quiche recipes, I find that frittatas lose a bit of taste in overnight storage, so it is best to make it right before serving.
Of course, whatever you plan for Mom, whether you make a meal at home or make a reservation to eat out, just be sure to add a huge helping of love, hugs and kisses. That’s what she really wants – for Mother’s Day and every day.
Jennie Leotta’s Single Crust Recipe
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
6 tbls shortening
2-3 tbls ice cold water
Mix flour and salt in a bowl. Cut shortening into flour.
Gradually add cold water and mix just until dough forms.
Shape dough into ball and, on a floured board, roll out to approximately a 1-inch thick crust that will be about an inch larger than the pie pan you are using. Put into pan, and pierce with fork tines to allow crust to “breathe” as it bakes.
Eric Masson’s Basic Quiche Custard
1/2 cup cream
1/2 cup milk
2 egg yolks
2 complete eggs
Salt and Pepper to taste
Dash of nutmeg
Whisk ingredients together. Pour into crust.
Bake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes or until a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean.
To make this basic recipe into a classic quiche Alsace Lorraine, add four pieces of bacon (cooked and crumbled), one chopped onion (sauteed) and about a teaspoon of fresh chives.
Masson says you can add sauteed vegetables – mushrooms, spinach, asparagus, red peppers – cheese and more to vary the type of quiche. He says he likes to make a salmon quiche and often makes a ratatouille quiche with eggplant, peppers, tomato and cheese.
This story was originally published May 6, 2015 at 2:00 AM with the headline "Mom’s main course."