Adding some vegetables to the traditional Quiche Lorraine

I suppose that you have heard already about the traditional Quiche Lorraine – bacon, swiss cheese and onions mingle in perfect harmony with eggs and cream. I adore vegetables, thus I’ve created my own, vegetable-heavy variation of this quiche. I usually add some carrots and zucchini. I also like to make the quiche quite thick, so that it remains more juicy and flavorful; thus my quiche has a bit more eggs than a traditional quiche has. It’s perfect for dinner and with these quantities serves for four to five. Also, leftovers are delicious the next day, either cold or re-heated!

Yield: 4-5 portions

Ingredients: 

• 7 eggs
• 150g smoked ham
• 250g shortcrust pastry
• 250g milk
• 100g cheese: swiss cheese or any kind of other cheese. I sometimes use “Boursin-style” cheese or even fresh goat cheese.
• 1 big onion
• 1 medium size zucchini
• 2-3 carrots
• salt, pepper, nutmeg

Step by step 

• Preheat the oven to 200°C. Place a baking tray into the oven.
• Prepare the vegetables: clean and grate the zucchini and carrots.

• Cut the onions and smoked ham into small cubes. Place both into a saucepan and cook over a medium heat until the onions become transparent.

• Add grated carrots and zucchini to the saucepan (keep the onions and ham in) and cook until they are soft.
• Meanwhile, beat the eggs, then add milk, grated cheese, salt, pepper and nutmeg.
• If there is too much liquid from the cooked vegetables, you can pour some of it away (I usually keep it all in).
• Mix the cooked vegetable with the egg-mixture.
• Roll out the pastry on a light floured surface until it is a circle of 32cm and then put it into 25cm x 5cm flan dish. Make sure that the pastry goes a bit over the dish borders, because is shrinks once cooked.
• Pour vegetable-egg mixture into the pastry case. If you haven’t used all of the cheese for the mixture, you can sprinkle some as well on top.

• Cook for around 40min, or until it is light brown on top and no longer liquid, but rather flan-like.

• Let the quiche settle for 15-20 mins and then serve. It’s also quite good cold, particularly in the summer.