GATEAU AU FROMAGE: Cheese Pie

There are so many eggs this time of the year, that any egg recipe is most welcome. I have my own version of cheese pie, or quiche – which usually includes whatever vegetables is particularly abundant at the time, and lots of home made goat cheese. Sometimes it has a crust and some times not – I prefer the crustless quiche because I like things to be all homegrown, and also wheat does not quite agree with me – however, my children are the opposite.

The crust recipe for this quiche is interesting because it includes egg. And it turned out very nice, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I usually use flour, butter and cold water or cream, but I think I liked the La Cuisine crust given here better. It is rich and flaky.

The only thing was that it seemed to make more crust than I could fit in my tart pan….it looks like a large tart pan, but perhaps it is actually small. I used all the pastry, just to be fair to the recipe, and the crust turned out rather thick. When I make this again, I will probably make a thinner crust and use the extra pastry for crackers, or blueberry tart or something.

Naturally, this recipe comes in three parts – first the crust, and next the filling (which is for a regular quiche), and last the modification to add Gruyère:

QUICHE

Line a buttered baking dish, three centimetres deep, with a dough made as follows:

500 grams of flour;

250 grams of butter;

8 grams of salt;

2 eggs.

Bake your crust in a hot oven for 10 minutes, remove, allow to cool, and fill with a half litre of cream, 100 grams of diced butter, four whole eggs, beaten; add salt and pepper and mix it well.

Let cook in a gentle oven for 10 minutes and serve the quiche well browned and toasted.

GATEAU AU FROMAGE

Prepare as above, but replace the cream with 250 grams of grated gruyere.

baked, but not filled

filled and ready to bake again.

Cheese Pie

For the pastry:

4 cups of flour

2 cups, plus 2 tablespoons butter (2 sticks plus 2 tablespoons)

1 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

1. Preheat the oven to 400F while you mix all ingredients into a dough. Roll out on a floured surface and line a buttered tart pan (about 3 centimetres deep). Or, if you are lazy like me, press in the dough in as evenly as possible, and crimp the edges.

2. Pre-bake the crust for 10 minutes. When you pull it out, turn the oven down to 350F. Let the crust cool for a bit while you are preparing the filling….

for the filling:

7 tablespoons of butter, diced

4 eggs, beaten

salt and pepper

3 cups of grated gruyere

1. Mix all the filling ingredients well. Pour into the pre-baked crust and put back in the cooler oven for about 10 minutes. It should be well browned and toasted when it is done.

{My grandmother, Claudia Meraud, was born in Nice, France. She immigrated to the US after meeting my grandfather while he was stationed there as a US soldier in WW II. We spent several summers together, just the two of us, living with her sister in Nice. She passed along to me an old French cookbook titled title is La Cuisine: Guide Practique De La Ménagère by R. Blondeau, Chef de Cuisine. It originally belonged to my great-grandmother, Lucie Thomas, who was a native of St. Marie-aux-Mines in Alsace.

This cookbook was published in the 1930’s, and was written as a practical guide for a household cook before the days of the fridge and the food processor. The recipes are delicious, practical, and (of course) packed with good traditional nutrition.

I am creating translated versions of these antique recipes, re-written for the modern cook, and tested with home-grown and seasonal food.}

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