Simple chard or turnip green quiche

October 8, 2018 at 10:52 am (Alma's faves, B plus (3.5 stars, like a lot), Dark leafy greens, Derek's faves, Fall recipes, Monthly menu plan: brunch, Monthly menu plan: dinner, Spring recipes, Website / blog) (preschooler-approved)

This is the only quiche I make regularly. I probably make it once every couple months. In the fall I use chard and in the spring when I can get them I use turnip greens / turnip tops or other dark leafy greens. Both Alma and Derek like this recipe a lot.

Ingredients (to try next time)

• 1 prepared pie crust
• 1 Tbs. olive oil
• 1 medium onion, chopped (an 8 oz / 226g onion, about 1 cup chopped)
• 1 medium/large bunch of chard (a 14 oz / 400g bunch), ends trimmed, leaves chopped, stems minced
• 1 cup grated Gruyere cheese (4 ounces / 113 g)
• 6 large eggs (300g of egg without the shells)
• 2 cups whole milk
• 3/4 tsp. salt (1/2 tsp. in the eggs and 1/4 tsp. in the chard)
• 1/4 tsp. black pepper
• 1/8? tsp. ground nutmeg
• 1/8 tsp. ground mustard powder (optional)

Instructions:

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Place the pie crust in a 26-cm tart pan and crimp the edges. Chop your onion and chard.
2. In a medium skillet, heat the tablespoon of oil over medium heat. Add the onion and chard stems and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the chard leaves to skillet, season with 1/4 tsp. salt and 1/8 tsp. pepper, and cook until wilted, 2 to 3 minutes.
3. Transfer chard mixture to a colander. Press firmly with the back of a spoon to squeeze out as much liquid as possible. Top prepared crust with chard mixture and cheese; place on rimmed baking sheet.
4. In a medium bowl, whisk together eggs, milk, nutmeg, mustard powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/8 teaspoon pepper. Pour custard over chard mixture. Bake until custard is set, 40 to 45 minutes. Let stand 15 minutes before serving.

Original post from Oct 8, 2018:

Tonight I made a chard quiche, roughly following a Martha Stewart recipe, except instead of making her homemade chard-crust I just used a store-bought quiche crust. Everyone liked it. Alma was especially enthusiastic.

The crust wasn’t great, but was okay. I have to either find a better one to buy or learn how to make one myself. I greased the pie pan with butter first and cooked the quiche at the temperature the crust said on the package for about 45 minutes. I didn’t pre-cook the crust, and the bottom ended up soggy. But Derek and Alma said they liked the soggy crust. I did not. Is there any way to get it to not be soggy? Pre-baking it? Putting something down before the filling? Moving the crust from the bottom layer to the top layer?

This is the recipe I roughly followed. (Update: Since I originally posted this entry the recipe has disappeared, so I’ve copied it here for safekeeping.)

Ingredients for crust:

• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour, (spooned and leveled)
• 3/4 cup toasted wheat germ
• 1/4 tsp. coarse salt + freshly ground pepper
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 8 ounces Swiss chard (1/2 large bunch), leaves chopped, stems minced

Ingredients for the quiche:

• 1 Tbs. olive oil
• 1/2 medium onion, minced
• 8 ounces Swiss chard (1/2 large bunch), leaves chopped, stems minced
• 1/2 cup grated Gruyere cheese (2 ounces)
• 4 large eggs
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/8 tsp. black pepper
• 1 pinch ground nutmeg
• 1 pinch ground mustard powder

Instructions for the crust:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, wheat germ, and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Set aside. In a medium skillet, heat 3 tablespoons oil over medium. Add half the chard to skillet, season with salt and pepper, and cook until chard wilts and releases liquid. Wipe skillet, set aside.
2. Add the cooked chard to the flour mixture and mix with fork to incorporate. Transfer to a 9-inch pie plate; firmly press mixture into bottom and up the side of pan. Bake until golden and firm, about 25 minutes. Cool.

Instructions for the filling:

1. In a medium skillet, heat remaining tablespoon oil over medium. Add onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, 3 to 5 minutes. Add remaining 8 ounces of chard to skillet, season with salt and pepper, and cook until wilted, 2 to 3 minutes.
2. Transfer chard mixture to a colander. Press firmly with the back of a spoon to squeeze out as much liquid as possible. Top prepared crust with chard mixture and cheese; place on rimmed baking sheet.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together eggs, milk, nutmeg, mustard powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/8 teaspoon pepper. Pour custard over chard mixture. Bake until custard is set, 40 to 45 minutes. Let stand 15 minutes before serving.

My notes:

I used 8 ounces of red chard leaves (a few of the very skinny stems, but probably at most an ounce). I didn’t notice the chard stems in the final dish. I sliced them very thin and cooked them with the onion. I think next time I could use a bit more stems.

I used the cup of whole milk and 4 (German large) eggs.

I didn’t have gruyere so I used 2 ounces of parmesan grated + 1.25 ounces of some soft tangy cheese from the biofrischmarkt. I used the full amount of salt in the mixture plus some in the chard. The quiche tasted good but I think it was too salty, probably because I used fine and not coarse salt. Next time I’d cut the salt down a tad.

I used pepper and nutmeg but was out of ground mustard. I would add a bit more nutmeg next time, as I couldn’t really taste it.

The recipe says it serves 6, but we actually got almost 7 pieces out. We were all hungry and had almost 2 pieces each for lunch. (Alma and I had small pieces for seconds.) There were 3 medium sized pieces left, which we will reheat for breakfast.

Update Feb 9, 2019:

Made this kale quiche recipe from Naturally Ella today. I only had 1.5 cups of milk but still I think it would have been way too much filling for my normal pie crust. I ended up using my larger enameled pan, but then there wasn’t as much crispy crust sticking out 😦

I didn’t love it, but I was out of cheddar. I used a little mozzarella and a lot of parmesan. It was a tad boring I thought. Derek said it was very good. He said the texture was more like quiche than the chard quiche recipe.

ingredients:

• 1 crust
• 1 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 medium shallot (4 ounces)
• 3 cloves garlic (minced)
• 1/2 pound lacinato kale (roughly chopped)
• 8 large eggs
• 2 1/2 cups whole milk
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 4 ounces sharp cheddar (shredded)

Update May 8, 2019:

I had a ton of Rübstiel from my CSA to use up, and wasn’t sure what to do with it. It seems that it’s basically baby turnip greens with lots of stems. I found this recipe for Rübstielkuchen, which is basically a quiche. So I decided to adapt the chard quiche recipe above to use the turnip greens instead.

The German recipe calls for a tart pan with a 26cm diameter, which is much larger than my pie plate.

Here’s a comparison of the three recipes:

original recipe x 2	german recipe	naturally ella recipe
8 eggs	4 eggs	8 eggs
1 onion	2 onions	4 oz shallot + 3 cloves garlic
1 pound chard (454g)	500g of Stielmus	1/2 pound Lacinato kale
2 cups whole milk (500 ml)	500 ml dairy (150 ml milk + 250 ml cream + 100g creme fraiche)	2.5 cups whole milk (625 ml)
4 ounces (113g) grated gruyere cheese	100g (3.5 oz) gruyere cheese	4 ounces cheddar
2 Tbs. olive oil	1 (German) teaspoon of oil	1 Tbs. olive oil
1 tsp. salt + 1/4 tsp. black pepper	salt and pepper to taste	1/2 tsp. salt + 1/2 tsp. black pepper
2 pinches ground nutmeg + 2 pinches ground mustard powder	—	—

I used just over a pound of turnip greens combined with the turnip stems, but only 1/2 an onion. I used 4 eggs, 1/2 cup of milk, 1/2 cup of cream, no creme fraiche, and 3 ounces (85g) comte, plus 1/2 tsp. fine salt and two pinches of nutmeg and some black pepper.

The quiche was quite tasty, but it was quite full and it didn’t hold together great. Also the bottom crust ended up super soggy. Maybe I should have squeezed the liquid out of the greens? Or maybe it was just too much greens for that much milk eggs/dairy? I thought the chard recipe above also called for 1 pound of chard, but I forgot that half of it goes in the crust. I’ve updated it above to make it clearer what goes in the crust and what goes in the filling.

Everyone loved the quiche, probably because it was quite salty and very rich. Alma had 3 (small) pieces and asked for another one. Derek and I talked about how we also wanted more because it’s so tasty, but we would probably get a stomachache if we ate more. We all decided to save our last piece for the morning. Of course, the next morning Alma wasn’t interested. She gave her piece to Derek and asked for oatmeal instead.