Pumpkin, Spinach and Caramelised Onion Quiche

It's been a while since I made a quiche for myself. You see, I've kinda been fascinated by millet - my new favourite ingredient (a post on millet will soon be up) which I cook for myself almost three times a week, sometimes five. :) Yeah, I guess I am obsessive that way - I find an ingredient I love, eat it till I'm sick of it and then, move on to the next best thing.

But I was reminded of how much I actually love quiche after Ivy of hungryc.com showed me photographs of a slice of quiche she had in Sydney recently.  It was a pumpkin and mushroom quiche - she sent me photos of the quiche through instant message while she was having it - talk about the wonders of technology, huh? - and all she said about it was was: "so yumm!". Now that speaks volumes, surely.

What a brilliant idea - pumpkin in quiche.

I wasn't going to Sydney anytime soon, so I decided I just had to make a quiche with pumpkin in it myself.

I resisted adding mushrooms to my pumpkin quiche though. I tend to use mushrooms as my go-to ingredient many of my dishes as it's a sure-thing, really - how can you go wrong with mushrooms, right?

Well, unless you're my husband who hates not only the taste but the smell of 'shrooms. So yes, I omitted them so that he could (and would) taste the quiche too.

I used spinach and caramelised onions instead. Sure, that meant more prep time as caramelising onions does take some time - but I roasted the pumpkins as the onions were slow cooking and also sauteed the spinach with garlic.

For the crust, I added some finely chopped hazelnuts - you should try this too (in any other quiche you may make) cos it added not only texture but flavour to the buttery pastry.

The result? It was, as Ivy puts it, so yumm.

* Check out this earlier post for a basic quiche recipe and replace the fillings with roasted pumpkin and anything else you fancy. For cheese, I used mozzarella.

Galettes, sweet and savoury

Galettes. My latest obsession. Those of you who don't know me well, know that I can be pretty obsessive. If I like something, I go all out. And I do mean ALL out. This applies to food (I've had a cupcake phase, a pasta phase, a pastry phase and then was the time I went elbow deep in making layered cakes ... like my life depended on it), TV (If I'm into a particular series, I spend hours ...no, days watching episode after episode - to hell with actually having a life!) and fashion (it's not uncommon that I buy five pieces of my favourite plain white tee ... I mean what if I never fins a white tee like this ever again, right?).

So, obsessive? Yeah, a little.

At the moment, I am mad about galettes - a flat, round (ish), free-form, rustic, flaky pastry with an either sweet or savoury filling. Essentially, a galette is an unfussy tart that doesn't need a mould to give it a perfect shape with perfect edges.

Despite the fanciful name, galettes are all about simplicity but not at the expense of flavour.

Constructing a galette is simple. Roll the chilled short crust pastry dough into a thin round. Pile the filling of your choice in the centre and then fold the edges up, pleating as necessary. Brush the folded up edges with egg wash and bake.

One important tip when constructing a galette is to roll the pastry thin: thinner than you would when you make a tart. Unlike a tart where the pastry is blind-baked in the mould BEFORE the addition of a filling, with a galette the pastry is baked only once, after the filling is in place. To make sure the pastry is cooked through in 30-35 mins (you can't over bake it as the filling may dry up or burn!), it has to be thin. 

Galettes can be made sweet or savoury. I made an apple galette for dessert last week and a couple of days after, i made a spinach and mushroom one for dinner. Too much pastry in a week? Never! In fact, I have another one I'm dying to try today: mustard, Gruyere cheese and tomatoes. Oh, I'm itching to go make it now and will post the results soon!. Till then, Here's the recipe for both the apple and spinach galette.

For the pastry (enough for 2 galettes)

300g flour (I used 200g plain flour and 150g whole wheat)

1/2 tsp salt (or if you want a sweet dessert crust, 1 tbsp icing sugar)

150g cold butter, cubed

4-6 tbsp ice cold water

Whisk together the salt (or sugar) and flour. Using a food processor, mixer or your fingertip, rub the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add the ice cold water tbsp at a time and bring the crumbs together to form a dough. Wrap in clingfilm and chill for at least 30 mins. 

Spinach and Mushroom Filling (for one galette)

4 cloves garlic, minced

3 cups chopped spinach

2 dried chilli, chopped/1 tbsp chilli flakes

1/2 lemon

5-6 mushrooms (I used baby portobellos and shitakes), sliced (or if small, halved).

3 tbsp breadcrumbs (optional)

salt and pepper

1/2 cup Cheese (I used cheddar)

1-2 tbsp sunflower seeds

1 egg, lightly beaten (for the egg wash)

Heat some butter in a skillet/pan. Saute half the chopped garlic and add the spinach, chilli, salt and pepper. Toss in the butter and cover for a couple of minutes. Remove the lid, put the heat on high and cook the spinach until it has all wilted. Check seasoning and turn off the heat. and stir the spinach and squeeze a tbsp of lemon juice and mix. Set aside.

Wash the skillet and heat some more butter, about 2 tbsp. Add the garlic and once fragrant, add the mushrooms. Toss in the butter and saute till just brown, about 6-8 mins. Add the breadcrumbs and stir to mix. Cook for a couple of minutes and turn the heat off.

Assembling the galette

Remove the pastry from the fridge. Lightly flour your work surface. Divide the pastry in half, keep one half aside (back in the fridge if you're not using it immediately) roll the other half thin, about 1.5-2 mm. Trim the edges so you get a round, more or less.

Transfer the pastry onto a baking sheet that's been lined with parchment paper. 

Preheat the oven to 180C.

Layer 1: Sprinkle the cheese in the centre of the pastry base, leaving about an inch-wide border all around.

Layer 2: Spoon in the spinach filling on top of the cheese.

Layer 3: Top with mushrooms. 

Layer 4: Sprinkle the sunflower seeds on top.

Fold the edges of the pastry around the filling, pleating as necessary. Brush the folded edges with the egg wash.

Bake for 30 mins or till pastry is cooked.

Apple Galette Filling
Peel and core 5 apples and slice them thin (I left mine unpeeled but I prefer them peeled).
1 lemon
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup coarse sugar
2 tbsp butter

Put the sliced apples, lemon juice and sugar in a saucepan and cook over low heat, covered, until the apples start to soften - about 15 mins.

When assembling the apple galettes, roll the pastry thin (as above). Sprinkle some sugar on the base of the pastry and arrange the apples in the centre. Dot with butter and fold in edges.

Brush the folded edges with egg wash and sprinkle with a little more sugar.

Bake for 30-35 mins. 

Daring Bakers: Hidden Veggies in Sweet Bakes

Ruth from Makey-Cakey was our March 2013 Daring Bakers' challenge host. She encouraged us all to get experimental in the kitchen and sneak some hidden veggies into our baking, with surprising and delicious results. I loved the idea of sneaking veggies into dessert - I especially like the reveal: you know, when you actually tell someone that the brownie they are savouring has actually more brinjal in it than chocolate or that the cheesecake they had two slices of has tofu (god forbid!) in it and not Mascarpone cheese. 

Yes, you guessed it. I'm a prankster. I'm one of those people who look forward to April Fool's day every year. I used to play a prank on my poor, dear mother every year. Now that she's not around any more, it is my doomed-to-be-long suffering husband has to bear my (often not well-thought out) pranks.

This month's challenge was the perfect pre-cursor to April Fool's Day (which is in five days! Can't wait!).

Ruth gave us several recipes to try out and they all looked extremely interesting but I had one recipe that I had thought up a while ago and was dying to try. I wanted to use spinach in a sweet cake. I've made a savoury spinach cheesecake before but never a sweet dessert cake. 

I must admit, the idea of spinach in a dessert cake was a little off-putting.I love spinach and I eat a helluva lot of it: but it's always seasoned with salt and pepper and never sugar. I was a little apprehensive and was prepared to think of creative ways of disposing the cake if it tasted ghastly (by creative I meant feeding it to Mojo, my dachshund who would gobble up anything!).

As it turned out, the spinach cake (an adaptation from the Turkish Ispanakli kek) turned out delicious. It tastes better once it has been chilled. The spinach is not discernible at all (unless you fail to puree the leaves properly and leave the evidence in the cake!) and most of the folks I offered the cake assumed the green colour was green tea/macha, pistachios or pandan leaves. I frosted the cake with some light cream cheese frosting which went really well with the cake.

I only revealed what the main ingredient of the cake was well after they'd had a couple of bites and expressed appreciation for the flavour and texture (for it is a very soft, moist cake) of the cake. The look on their faces though as they were eating a spinach cake was. quite frankly, priceless.
 

Would they eat it again? Most said yes. Some urged me to delude them into believing it was pistachio or green tea the next time for though they loved the flavour, they needed time to get comfortable with the idea of a spinach cake.

It was a fun challenge overall and I am amazed at the creative efforts of my fellow Daring Bakers: Chickpea White Chocolate Brownies? Edamame Whoopie Pies? Kidney Bean Chocolate Cakes? Whoa. Looks like I'll have a lot of ammunition come April Fools Day!


Spinach Cake With Cream Cheese Frosting

1 cup pureed spinach (leaves only: should get this from 300g spinach or so)
3 eggs
2 tbsp lime juice
225g sugar (+ 1/4 cup more if you prefer a your cakes sweet)
250g all purpose flour
3 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
3/4 cup canola/vegetable oil

Preheat the oven to 180C.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt.

Beat the eggs and sugar until pale and smooth. Add oil, lemon juice and pureed spinach and mix until everything is well incorporated.

Fold in the flour.

Pour the batter into a greased 8-inch baking pan and bake for 30-35 mins or until a tester comes out clean.

Cool cake completely before frosting (which is optional. You can get the recipe for the frosting here).

Once frosted, chill cake for at least a couple of hours before devouring. Tastes best chilled!

Palak means spinach

Everytime I visit my favourite North Indian restaurant I order the same dish: Palak Paneer or spinach with cottage cheese. In fact, when I was on holiday in Northern India a couple of years ago, I think I ordered this dish almost every night. My three travel mates didn't compain as it was everyone's favourite. The creamy, slightly spicy spinach coupled with the lightly toasted cottage cheese is just perfect.

Unfortunately, because  paneer is quite pricey (you can get a 150gm packet for between RM15 to  RM20) I don't often make it at home. It's cheaper to order it at a restaurant:  RM8 for a side dish that can be shared by 2-3 (depending how greedy you are). of course, it isn't difficult to make paneer at home. In India, most people do. Like ricotta, what you need is whole milk and citric acid or vinegar.

But, as luck would have it, I was in Brickfields last week for a job assignment and took the opportunity to go grocery shopping. As KL's "little India", Brickfields has some really cool Indian grocers that stock Indian cooking produce largely  imported from India. From spice mixes to Indian biccies and snacks, these shops are a cook's paradise (well, if you're into Indian or Indian influenced cooking). I spent about an hour browsing and came away with a 200g packet of paneer (and a whole lot of other things -- I cannot resist temptation) costing me Rm15.

Perfect. 200g of paneer is actually quite a lot, especially since I usually only cook for two. I decided to use just a small portion of the cheese for the Palak Paneer and keep the rest to experiment with later. Palak paneer can be eaten with rice but is usually eaten with Indian flat breads. I like to eat mine alone.

Palak paneer

2 cups chopped spinach

40g paneer, cubed

1/2 onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1 inch ginger, peeled and chopped

1 large green chilli, sliced

1 tsp cumin powder

1 tsp coriander powder

salt and pepper

Butter

Shallow fry the paneer cubes till they begin to get golden and crusty. Don't let them fry too long.

Pound/blend the onion, garlic and ginger to a paste. Mix the cumin and coriander powders with the paste. Heat 1 tbsp butter in a saucepan and add the onion/garlic/ginger paste. When fragrant, add the green chillies and soon after the spinach. Cook till the spinach is all soft, then transfer the contents of the saucepan into a blender and blend (if you want it slightly chunky, just pulse the mixture a couple of times. If you prefer it smooth and creamy, blend it for about 2 mins.

Heat some butter in a clean saucepan; add a couple bay leaves. A couple of minutes later add the spinach blend and then the cottage cheese and leave it to simmer for about 5 mins, stirring occassionally. Low heat.

Remove and serve with bread.

A superhero called Spinach

[caption id="attachment_582" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="Cant go wrong with spinach"][/caption]

Flaky -- not me; but the canola pastry I used for this spinach roll thing. I am not being blasé; I really don't know what to call it. It's not a puff and it didn't roll properly. Let's just say ... spinach pastry, shall we?

Spinach, I find, is the one thing you cannot possibly get wrong. Whether you  cream it or steam it; stuff it in a puff or puree it in a soup, the result is always fantastic.

For this filling, I just cooked the spinach (drained well) in some butter and added some sliched button mushrooms (sauteed first), cherry tomatoes, chopped shallots and garlic and then seasoning. That's it. The tomatoes were more for colour than flavour because nothing should outshine the rich flavour of  spinach. And, it's food you can eat without guilt cos apart from being rich in iron, this superfood is also  rich in betacarotene (second only to carrots) and also a good source of potassium and folates.

And it tastes good. Always. Anyways, back to the recipe; a good final touch would be sprinkling  cheese on the spinach when rolling it in the pastry.

Remember: be strong to the finich and eats lotsa spinach.

If you like this post, you might wanna check out

Bouchee. Don't pronounce, just devour.

[caption id="attachment_491" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="Stuffed but still pretty."][/caption]

I had it once at a fancy cocktail party somewhere and I think I spent more time studying my bouchee than actually eating it. Ok, it's pretty small and so all it takes is a  couple of bites (one, if your not concerned about appearing dainty).

And then I forgot about it until last weekend. I was at Bangsar Village II and noticed that the Delicious cafe had an annex that sold food supplies and some other cook's toys: crockery and machinary.  I walked in -- just curious, not intending to buy anything -- and 20 minutes later walked out with a packet of 12 mini bouchee cases. I had to  get them because I hadn't thought of those bouchees since that one time I had them many years ago.

[caption id="attachment_493" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Ready made. "][/caption]

Bouchee shells are basically puff pastry cylinders -- kinda like shot glasses made of puff pastry -- in which you stuff with the filling of your choice. Now, I had no intention of making the shells myself but since they  were all done for me  (all I had to do was stick them in the oven (180 C) for five mins or so to warm them up before serving) I started to get excited and began cracking my head over the filling. (An alternative to the shells would be toasted 2 inch bread circles -- a tad less exciting but just as delicious)

Well, I didn't really crack my head. I knew I wanted mushrooms and spinach and I knew I didn't want them together. So I decided to stuff a couple with Creamed herbed Mushrooms and another two with spinach and caramelised onions.

[caption id="attachment_494" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="spinach and onions."][/caption]

The mushrooms were lovely but I think my new favourite combo is the spinach + caramelised onions. So divine. And so simple. Don't believe me?

How could Popeye not like spinach?

A cup of spinach, washed and cut small

1 tsp garlic

salt and pepper

knob of butter

Melt butter. Add garlic and a couple of minutes later, add spinach and a dash of water. Cook till soft and water evaporates; add seasoning and mash spinach and remove from heat.

The spinach- onion hook-up.

11/2- 2 tbsp Olive oil

2 large red onions

1 tsp brown sugar/balsamic vinger

Heat oil in saucepan till it simmers (medium heat). Add onions and stir a little to coat with oil evenly. Stir occasionally -- not to often or they won't brown well. Five minutes in, add  sugar and let the magic begin. Remove before it burns (letting them burn just a little is quite lovely actually) -- should be about 15 to 20 mins.

Stuff bouchee with spinach mix. Spread onions on plate. Place the stuffed bouchee on the onions. Attack.

I told ya, it's easy when you cheat and use store ready shells.

This is getting to be a challenge

[caption id="attachment_58" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Spinach and Mushroom mini quiches"][/caption]

Am I regretting my decision to give the blood type diet a chance? Yeah.

Am I beginning to question how such a restrictive diet could work in the long run? Uh-huh.

Am I going to give up? Hell, no! Cos my pride is the only thing bigger than my craving for tofu.

Yes I know that sounds ridiculous. Whoever craves tofu, right?

Anyways, back to my progress.  I have decided to stay away from broccoli for a few days -- I''ve been having it so often, them florets are starting to invade my dreams. Me and broccoli -- I think we need some space.

And so, I've decided to turn to spinach (good for me) and eggs (good for me about 3/4 times a week) and cheese (good for me) and mushrooms (neutral -- i.e. they arent beneficial but they ain't gonna do me harm).   Mix all these up -- with salt, pepper, chilli flakes and some milk) and I got myself six pretty little muffin quiches (no pastry, as wheat is the enemy) that are delicious, healthy and type-B friendly.

Muffin Quiches (makes 6) ♣

3 or 4 medium to large button mushrooms (fresh is always better), sliced

2 tbsp leaf spinach (I used canned spinach), chopped

1 green chilli, chopped

1 tbsp crushed tomatoes (I used canned Italian tomatoes)

3 eggs

1 cup milk

leek (about a 3 inch stem), sliced.

chilli flakes

mozerella cheese, cubed small

4 black olives for garnishing, sliced

1 tbsp butter

1. Heat butter in a skillet and add leek. Saute for about 3 mins, then add mushrooms. Cook till brownish (about 4 mins) and add spinach, tomatoes  and green chilli. Cook for a few minutes and add chilli flakes, a pinch of salt and black pepper -- be generous with the pepper. Take off the fire.

2. Heat oven at 180 C

3. Whisk eggs with milk, add salt and then add in the cooked  ingredients.

4. Divide mix and half fill the muffin cups. Add cubed mozerella -- distribute evenly in all six cups. Fill with remaining egg mix.

5. Top with sliced olives and bake for 40 mins.