This was an adventure that has reminded me that, in spite of Julia's help, I haven't quite "Mastered the Art of French Cooking." It was fun. I learned a lot. I didn't suffer any injuries (close, but not quite). I didn't make a huge mess. The food tasted pretty good. On the downside I was just a tad late having it finished (ummmmm, something like 10:15pm) and it didn't go exactly as planned. I started this project at about 5pm, the pastry shell had to bake for about 10 minutes and the quiche for about 30 minutes. No problem, giving myself a little buffer I figured I'd be done by 7pm. Nope. Here's the tale of what happened. So sit back, relax, and have some popcorn (not French) handy for a snack while I tell you the story...
For weeks I've been thinking about and planning on making a quiche. Julia has a bunch of quiche recipes and they seem pretty easy. With Elizabeth having an allergy to eggs I've been stalling since I knew she couldn't make it. That and the fact that I was a bit afraid of having to make pastry dough and a pastry shell from scratch. First I spent weeks trying to find a store that sold scratch. Nobody sells it here! Teeeeheeeeee. I crack myself up sometimes.
On to the pastry making. Remember, this was my FIRST time ever making a dough. The store sells pie shells and that's the closest I've ever come. This was definitely a scary process, especially because Julia kept reminding me that I had to work quickly. Its supposed to be a flaky buttery crust and the secret is keeping everything cold until it goes into the oven. Iced water, cold butter, chilled shortening go into the flour. Quickly using the fingertips and the heel of your hand because they transfer less heat. Soooooo much to remember.
Julia gives permission to use a food processor to mix the dough, but makes you feel guilty because a real French chef will use their hand to feel the dough. Hmmmmm, great advice. I'm supposed to feel the dough to make sure it feels like the right texture? 1. I've never made a pastry dough before so how am I supposed to know what it is supposed to feel like? 2. If it doesn't feel right (I'd guess a pudding texture wouldn't be correct), how am I supposed to fix it? Okay Julia, I'll play along. Here's what Julia says, just to shame me into sticking my hands into the gooey stuff: "A pastry blender may be used if you wish, but a necessary part of learning how to cook is to get the feel of the dough in your fingers. Il faut mettre la main a la pate!" At least she explained it in French, now its perfectly clear. Besides, I don't even know what "pastry blender" is and I'm pretty sure I'd be sleeping in the driveway if Elizabeth found out that I bought one.
The time had come and I needed to dive in -- with my fingers. The butter (of course there's butter) and shortening were cut into small pieces and made ready to add to the flour. Interesting side note -- At the beginning of the pastry dough section, Julia explains that there's actually a difference between American and French flour and a little difference in the butter as well. To compensate and have the same flaky texture, a certain amount of shortening is substituted in place of the butter. I don't begin to understand the chemistry but I did it.
The flour, some salt, and a little sugar (Optional to add color during baking. More magic, add some white sugar and it makes the crust brown? Go figure.) were put into a mixing bowl. Then the butter and shortening were put in -- no liquid, just the butter and shortening. At this point I could hear Julia yelling over my shoulder in her high pitched voice: "Work quickly, don't let the butter melt!!" She also said I wasn't supposed to over mix the dough, just make it be oat sized blops (blop is my personal unit of measure, not a typo) of dough. At first I couldn't figure out what was supposed to happen so I began squeezing the little blobs of butter... and then it started to work! Smush the butter with some flour over and over, just using the fingertips, and then it started turning into little clumps of dough! Wow. After a couple minutes it started coming together into a bit of a ball and I was ready for the next step -- on to the all important "fraisage!"
The fraisage is apparently the all important final step in properly blending the butter/shortening/flour mixture. I put the ball of dough on the pastry board (I actually used a nylon pastry cover on the countertop) and then, using only the heel of my hand (the palm is too warm) pressed a couple spoonfuls worth of dough down and forward. Doing this over and over pressed and mixed in any remaining large pieces of butter to evenly distribute it into the dough. I kept working quickly like Julia said and began to understand why -- as the butter melts the dough started getting gooey and sticky. But I did it! I then dusted the dough and wrapped it with wax paper and put it into the fridge to cool (keep that butter from turning liquid).
First mistake of the evening. Julia said the dough needed to chill in the refrigerator for two hours or in the freezer for one hour. I put the dough into the refrigerator and set my timer for one hour. Did you catch the problem? When I glanced at the timer and saw it was down to 20 minutes I realized that I hadn't put the dough in the freezer. Aaaaagh - i transferred it to the freezer and decided I should wait for another 45 minutes at least. I did. Tick tock. Then just as I was ready to get the dough, Elizabeth came home. I said I'd make her dinner (hamburger -- not French but I could grill it outside and not need the kitchen I had converted into a bakery). Made dinner, ate dinner, and went back to my dough that was still chilling (about 45 extra minutes had elapsed. Tick tock.
Finally ready to roll out the door I had the freezer door open and was literally reaching for the dough when I was contacted by my boss who asked if I could talk for a couple of minutes. Sure. Tick tock. Yes, my quiche wasn't done until after 10pm but if I take out the time the dough was chilling, I made and ate dinner, and was on the phone, it did end up adding about 2 1/2 hours to what I'd expected. Making the adjustment for that I can claim that I had this done and ready to eat by around 7:45 or 8pm. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
The rest of the process went pretty quickly but still afforded me the opportunity for a couple of non-fatal blunders. I managed to roll the dough out and get it into the false bottomed cake pan. I even managed to press the dough properly into the pan. I was soooooo excited that it was working I moved right onto the next step, or so I thought. I was so confident in what I needed to do that I went ahead and started making the quiche. I pressed my cooked bacon into the bottom of the crust. Luckily my favorite sous chef, Elizabeth, was peeking at the recipe and pointed out the me that the bacon was supposed to be cut into pieces. Tick tock. I quickly (yes Julia, I'm hurrying to keep my dough cool before it goes into the oven) plucked out the bacon and cut it up using my crazy good knife skills. I then took all the little pieces of bacon into the bottom of the dough in the pan and as I was about to pour in the egg and cream mixture (oh yeah, I made that while the dough was chilling) a light went off. The light wasn't in the oven, it was in my head. I was supposed to be pouring the mixture into a prebaked shell. As Homer Simpson would say -- "Dough!"
Yep, I had to pluck out all of the little bacon pieces. Tick tock. And then I was ready to bake the dough into a shell for the crust. Into the oven it went and it worked! Is wasn't perfectly even on the edges (it was my first pastry, after all) but it worked! It was firm enough to hold the contents, even after I removed the ring of the pan. That was an adventure too - as Julia told me I sat the pan on a jar and the ring fell off leaving the nice shell on the flat base. Hey Julia, how am I supposed to pick this thing up -- oh, use a taller jar (that's why she said a quart not a pint. Where was Gallon Man when I needed him?). Did I mention that everything was really hot? I suppose that is what a 400 degree oven does.
I was so happy to have this lovely shell that I immediately poured in the cream and egg mixture and as soon as I did...I remembered that I'd forgotten to put the bacon pieces in the bottom. Aaaaarrrggghh! It's pretty hard to pick out a liquid so I decided to do my own version of quiche lorraine and just sprinkled the bacon on top. It actually worked really well since some sank, some floated and some was in the middle.
Next crisis -- after I put everything in the shell I noticed a small rivulet of cream mixture slowly flowing out of a notch in the side of the shell. Apparently I'd nicked the edge of the shell with my finger when I took it out of the pan. After a brief moment of panic I found a piece of unbaked dough trimming and plugged the hole in the dam. Luckily it worked. I did have enough confidence in my repair that I kept a cookie sheet under the quiche in the oven -- just in case. Of course, getting the quiche into the oven was an adventure by itself. After filling the pastry shell with the cream/egg mixture, pretty much to the top of the pastry, I needed to transfer it into the oven...without spilling everything. Did you know that there are no handles on a pastry shell? Do you remember that the ring was removed from the pan so the pastry shell, filled with liquid, is sitting on the flat bottom from the cake pan and that bottom is slightly smaller than the pastry itself? Considering that the pastry shell is only partially baked (it finishes when filled and baked with the egg/cream mixture) I couldn't really hold the shell and also considering that I'd already sprung a leak it was a challenge. Tick tock. My sous chef, Elizabeth, came up with the idea of putting it on an upside down plate and sliding it off that and onto the oven rack. It worked.
Then, about 25 minutes later, the inside of the quiche was beautifully puffed up and done! Then I realized I had to get the thing out of the oven. Putting it in was a challenge but this time it was about 1,000 degrees warmer! It is all a repressed memory now but somehow I got it out and onto a cooling rack without any blisters, or even red marks, on my hands or arms.
By the time it came out of the oven it was well after 10pm but I had actually made a pastry shell and turned it into a quiche!! To top it off it actually tasted pretty good! I suppose with practice I might be a bit faster, I sure hope so. The quiche was really good but didn't look like the photos in a cooking magazine, but it definitely was tasty. That being said, I don't want to spend five hours making these things every time! On a side note, reading through Julia's words of wisdom, and thinking about future recipes, I discovered that pretty much any quiche can be made in a ceramic baking dish without a crust! Cooked without a crust it is called a "Gratin." Hmmmmm, I still like the pastry shell on a quiche but if I'm in a hurry it is nice to know that I can shave off a couple of hours just by changing the name. In any case, I'm pretty sure that I'll be posting a few more quiche adventures in the future!
In the meantime,
Bon Appetit!
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