Smoked Salmon and Watercress Quiche by Helen Graves - Food Stories
To make the pastry:
1. Sift the flour and salt into a large bowl. Add the cubed Lurpak® and rub it into the flour, using your fingertips. Work as quickly as you can doing this, until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add 2 tablespoons of cold water and bring the mixture together into a firm dough; you may need to add a little more water if it won’t come together.
2. Wrap the pastry well in clingfilm and put it in the fridge to rest for at least 30 minutes.
Make the filling:
3. While the pastry is resting, dice the smoked salmon and roughly chop the watercress; set aside in separate bowls. In a clean bowl, whisk together the eggs, dill, milk and cream and season well with salt and pepper.
Assemble the quiche:
4. Preheat the oven to 200C.
5. Remove the pastry from the fridge and roll it out on a lightly floured surface to a circular shape that is larger than your dish. You want the pastry to hang over the sides of the dish.
6. Once rolled, gently fit the pastry into the quiche dish, pressing gently into the sides to make sure it fits snugly. Do not trim the pastry edges to much at this stage, as it will shrink slightly during cooking.
7. Cover the pastry with a sheet of greaseproof paper and fill with baking beans (or dried pulses, or rice) and bake for 20 minutes. Remove the baking beans and greaseproof paper and bake for a further 5 minutes until the pastry is a light golden colour all over.
8. Trim the sides of the pastry using a serrated knife. Scatter the watercress over the bottom of the pastry case, followed by the smoked salmon. Pour in the egg and cream mixture and carefully put in the oven to avoid spillage. Cook for 40 minutes, or until the quiche is set with just a slight wobble in the centre.
Ingredients
For the pastry:
200g plain flour
100g cold Lurpak®, cut into cubes
A pinch of salt
2-3 tablespoons cold water
For the filling:
200g smoked salmon
2 handfuls watercress (remove any large stalks from the watercress and you should be left with about 50g)
250ml double cream
100ml milk
5 eggs
1 heaped tablespoon finely chopped dill
You will also need baking beans, dried pulses or rice, for blind baking the pastry