The Best Spinach Quiche Ever
Common spinach, or more correctly Swiss chard, is one of the most rewarding home grown vegetables in terms of yield. But to make it a worthwhile crop, you need to find delicious ways to serve it at the table.
While you can certainly use very young spinach and/or Swiss chard in salads, when the plants get a bit older, it is better to either blanch them briefly in boiling water, or braise with onions and/or other vegetables. This mix can then be combined with additional ingredients and used to fill pies or quiches.
Ingredients that Work Well with Spinach
While both onion and garlic are ingredients that combine beautifully in the pot with spinach and/or Swiss chard, it is probably Feta cheese that tops the list of “best with spinach”. Not only will Feta add flavour and a little saltiness, but it all creates a creaminess that makes some spinach dishes winners.
Eggs, bacon and mushroom also work incredibly well with spinach, whether you’re preparing creamed spinach topped with poached eggs, or a quiche cooked with the traditional custard topping.
Once you have experimented with these ingredients, you can decide which to include and which to leave out.
Winning Spinach Quiche Recipe
This recipe is based on personal taste and a need to prepare quality food quickly. Feel free to add and subtract whatever you wish … and enjoy. If you consider yourself to be a pastry fundi, make your own; otherwise buy ready-made frozen puff pastry. These ingredients will produce two good sized quiches using one pack of ready-made pastry.
You will need:
500 g frozen puff pasty
500 g (or more) home grown Swiss chard, washed (not dried), trimmed and chopped
2 medium sized white onions, chopped
4 cloves garlic (more or less depending on taste), crushed
250 g white button mushrooms, sliced
250 g lean bacon, cut into pieces
100 g (or more) Feta cheese
1 cup cream
6 eggs
salt and pepper to taste
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoons butter
What to do:
Heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil and throw in the onion and garlic. Cook over medium heat until it is soft but not brown, then throw in the spinach. Any water on the spinach leaves can go into the pan, but don’t add any extra. Allow to steam over low heat, tossing every five minutes or so.
Heat the rest of the olive oil in a separate pan and cook the bacon. Add the mushrooms along with the butter and coarsely ground black pepper to taste. Allow to cook briefly until the mushrooms are coated with butter, but before the mushrooms begin to shrink and lose their moisture content.
Roll out the defrosted pastry and line two 260 mm (10 inch) quiche pans.
Combine the spinach and bacon mixes together and add the Feta, crumbling it into little bits. Split the mix between the two pans.
Break the eggs into the c ream and whisk thoroughly. Season with salt and pepper before pouring over the quiches.
Preheat the oven to 180 °C or 350 °F and cook for about 40 minutes.
Serve the quiche on its own or with a simple tomato and lettuce salad. Enjoy!
Annette Welsford has a partial degree in Horticulture and a Post Graduate Certificate in marketing. Having lived in the cold, temperate and hot parts of Australia and the UK, she has gained experience over the years with gardening in a variety of climates. Annette also worked for a fertilizer company where she was responsible for developing, editing and publishing a range of technical manuals on nutrition and fungal diseases for a wide range of horticultural crops including tomatoes. Annette is Managing Director of Commonsense Marketing Pty Ltd, a publishing and marketing company, responsible for the editing, design and worldwide marketing of the How to Grow books, and other products. Commonsense Marketing also provides expert offline and online marketing consulting and design services to a variety of small to medium sized businesses.
Tags: creamed spinach, spinach quiche, spinach quiche recipe, Swiss chard
