Nici Wickes: Asparagus Quiche

A quiche is a fabulous vehicle for asparagus and it makes a fabulous lunch or dinner.  

Serves 4-6  

 

Ingredients  

1-2 sheets short crust pastry  

5 large eggs  

½ cup grated cheese  

½ cup cream (can use milk)  

½ cup chopped parsley  

½ tsp sea salt  

¼ tsp black pepper  

100g cold smoked salmon  

5 spears asparagus, cut into 4cm lengths  

 

Method 

1.Preheat oven to 190 C and place a tray in to heat on the middle (or a little bit higher) rack.  

2.Roll out the pastry to fit a 23cm loose-bottom tart tin. Press into tin, leaving any overhang as this will fall away when cooked. Prick all over with a fork. Chill for 15-30 minutes before baking for 15-18 minutes or until lightly golden.  Cool.  

3.Sprinkle cheese over pastry case. Whisk eggs with cream to mix. Add in parsley, salt and pepper. Pour into pastry case. Sprinkle over cut asparagus and salmon bake for 35-40 minutes or until a slight wobble in the middle. Remove and cool to warm to serve.  

 

Nici’s note 

You can get away with blind baking pastry without the beans/rice if it is pricked all over, well-rested and chilled so that it doesn’t shrink.  

 

Make it your own 

Use feta instead of salmon. 

Use drained tinned salmon or tuna in place of smoked salmon. 

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from News Talks AB.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
It's time to catch up with our cook Nikki Wicks
for this week's delicious recipe. Yelder Yeah to Maria Jack, Well,
given it it is, basically, by anyone's measure, the start
of spring. You are talking asparagus this morning.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
I am, and I've been waiting and waiting and waiting
for asparagus to come down in price and up and flavor,
and those two magical things have happened just this week.
I feel. I hope it's the same for everyone across
the country. But I love the first spears of asparagus appearing,
unfortunately not in my garden because I've never given it

(00:49):
a crack, but certainly on the shelves and the super
Yeah you are asparagus fan? Are you ambivalent?

Speaker 1 (00:56):
Do you know?

Speaker 2 (00:57):
I it's funny, you know, when I think about the
food memories of my life, I never liked asparagus as
a kid until I had it fried in butter for
the first time, and I realized that actually, no matter
what you're eating, if it's fried in butter, it is
delicious and so as my as my palette has evolved.
I've become much more of an asparagus fan, and this

(01:18):
recipe I certainly think is a bit of meat.

Speaker 3 (01:21):
You look asparagus keish, I mean, asparagus and eggs are
kind of great friends. And you'll often have a sort
of eggs beanie maybe, or a sort of softly poached
egg with some spears of asparagus that you kind of
dip into. That's not really my stick, because I like
my eggs pretty well cooked. But this keish is just beautiful.
I've also thrown some smoked salmon and there you don't

(01:44):
need to necessarily, but here we go. And I've got
a couple of little tricks for those of you thinking, oh,
keche pastry.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
Here we go.

Speaker 3 (01:51):
It's super easy. Oven goes on one hundred and ninety,
and we are using a short crust pastry. You might
need one or two. Sometimes I need just a little
bit more than one sheet of the pre rolled jack,
so you might need a little bit of number two
sheets of pastry. But anyway you want to roll out
your pastry, but to fit about a twenty three centimeter

(02:13):
loose bottom tart. And that's one that's sort of got
some fluting around the edges. If you don't have one
of those, use something else. It won't really matter too much.
Press your pastry fairly firmly into that tin and leave
a bit of overhang over the side that's going to
fall away as it cooks. But this little trick helps
us to kind of get around the shrinking idea of
pastry where it comes away from the edges too much.

(02:35):
Prack it all over with a fork, that's key, and
then chill it from about fifteen to thirty minutes. That's
key as well. Again, we're trying to stop shrink at
here without doing the boring old blind baking. But then
you want to bake it in that preheated oven sort
of towards a little you know, not quite middle, maybe
a little bit higher, fifteen to eighteen minutes until it's
quite golden, and then bring it out and you can

(02:56):
call it. It'll cool while you do this. Next stage,
in a nice big bowl, we want to whisk some eggs.
I've got five large eggs in here. I've got half
a cup of grap cheese. You can either put that
in with the eggs, or you can sprinkle it over
the base. I've done it both ways. Either or really
half a cup of cream. You could use milk. Add

(03:16):
in a good half cup of chopped parsley, roughly chopped parsley,
good half teaspoon of sea salt, good bit of black pepper,
and you just want to whisk all of that together
and then pour that gently into your pastry case, sprinkle over.
I've used about five spears of misparagus here. I've cut
them into four centimeter lens, but I've snapped those tough
ends off just where they want to snap, not the

(03:38):
lovely frilly end, but the other end. Then I'll just
take that out of the equation and then chop them up,
throw them in. Put in that smoked salmon if you're
using it, and then you just want to cook it.
It's probably going to take about thirty five or forty minutes.
It'll probably dome up, That's what tends to happen, right,
and it'll sink slightly as it cools, but you want
to take it out when it's just got a slight

(03:59):
wobble in the middle, and then it'll set as it calls.
Great to serve it, not really piping hot. I wouldn't
go for that. I'd go more sort of warm or
room temperature if you like. Yeah, and it's just beautiful.
And the asparagus in it, it's like it wants to
be in that little douvet of of eggs because it's

(04:20):
softened up, the flavor comes out. It's just perfect. I
like it. Great little weekend dish.

Speaker 2 (04:26):
There's a little douvet that eggs, blankets and eggs.

Speaker 3 (04:31):
You could use feater instead of salmon. I've decided you
could also use drained tin salmon or tunea. I mean,
you know, in this day and age, anything goes. I'm
not strict about the rules, as you know. Yeah, yeah,
a little asparagus keys.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
Oh yeah, that sounds beautiful. This sounds so good. Okay,
we're gonna put the recipe and some photos on the
News Talks website. Thank you so much, Nikki. We will
see you next week.

Speaker 3 (04:54):
Sounds great.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
That is Nicki Wicks our cook with her asparagus Keith
Recipe this Morning.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live
to News Talks. He'd be from nine am Saturday, or
of the podcast on iHeartRadio.