Introduction: Pancetta & Cheddar Mini Quiche

By Sharon Mitchell
About: "I see things that aren't there yet"

Made with proper shortcrust pastry (imho, the easiest pastry to make!) these make an ideal brunch item, or fridge snack, party nibble or lunchbox filler.


Shop-bought quiche & pastries are made with nasty inflammatory seed-oils / palm oil. This recipe uses stable-at-high-temperature animal fats so is ideal for those that opt for a carnivore / high animal protein & fat diet.

Supplies

For the shortcrust pastry casing

  • 50g Salted butter (extra for greasing your baking pan)
  • 50g Lard (porcine fat)
  • 225g Plain flour (extra for dusting your rolling surface)
  • Pinch of salt
  • 2 x Tbsp, ~30ml, water (for binding)

For the quiche filling

  • Parsley (1x Tbsp, ~15ml, dried)
  • Cheese (grated)
  • 160g pancetta cubes (pan-fried), or substitute with bacon lardons, or even cooked ham
  • 150ml single cream
  • 1 medium egg
  • Freshly ground black pepper

Kitchen tools

  • Baking pan
  • Rolling pin
  • Mixing bowl
  • Cookie cutter (if using a 12-dimple pan, but the recipe could be made in a single larger flan case)

Step 1: Making the Shortcrust Pastry Casing

  1. Place the flour in the mixing bowl, together with the pinch of salt
  2. Cut the fat into cubes and add to the bowl
  3. Get your clean hands and nails into the bowl at this stage, and rub the fat into the flour until it resembles fine breadcrumbs (pastry making involves getting your hands in there, this is why we don't buy plastic manicures! :)
  4. Add the water a little at a time and gradually bring the mixture (bind) together with your hands (don't dump all the water in one load, we can always add a little more, we can't take it out if we render it too sloppy!) you may need more or less than 30ml, so add it slowly, we're aiming for a clean bowl - i.e. when the pastry is sufficiently bound there will be no residue left around the inside of the bowl, it will all bind together nicely
  5. In very hot weather, chill before use, the pastry in the fridge, you on the sofa!
  6. Put your stove on to warm the oven cavity whilst you roll-out the pastry - we need 200C / 400F / Gas 6
  7. Lightly dust a rolling surface (clean worktop, tabletop, large chopping board, whatever you're using for rolling out), this helps prevent the pastry sticking while we work it
  8. Roll the pastry until it is approx. 3mm thick
  9. Grease your baking pan - I used a 12-dimple tin as I don't have a single large flan case, but these are ideal for individual mini quiche - this will make it easier after baking to just pop the quiche out without it sticking to the pan and breaking up on exit.
  10. If you're making individual mini quiche, you'll need a cookie cutter, I think mine was a little too large, so I had to pinch the pastry disks into a quatrefoil shape, but we need the pastry to come a way up the sides of the pan to hold the liquid filling until it bakes firm
  11. Re-dust your surface, as required, and ball-up then roll again any pastry off-cuts after the first batch of cookie-cut disks have been taken from your roll-out, continue until you've populated your tin, I had pastry leftover after taking 12-disks - the egg in the photo is for scale as I don't have a banana to hand![https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/banana-for-scale]
  12. You can freeze any leftover pastry for future use, this will gain 3x months shelf-life

Step 2: Making the Quiche Filling

  1. Beat the egg in a clean bowl or jug
  2. Add the single cream
  3. Add the parsley
  4. Crack some black pepper into the liquid, and mix everything well
  5. Pan fry the pancetta (or your uncooked substitute)
  6. Place the cooked pancetta cubes into your pastry case(s), we don't need to blind-bake this pastry, it all goes in the oven in one pass
  7. Top the pancetta with freshly grated cheese (I prefer a strong West Country Cheddar, grated on-demand as shop-bought grated cheeses are coated with starches to prevent clumping in production & transit)
  8. Divide the egg-cream-parsley mixture evenly by topping off your populated pastry case(s)


Step 3: Baking

  1. Bake for ~35mins until filling is set firm (I piggy-backed some sausages for additional fridge snacks while my oven was on, these are impressively 93% pork, rare for supermarket meat)
  2. Lever out the baked quiche with a spoon - you did grease your pan like I mentioned didn't you.?!
  3. Leave to cool on a baking rack - I used the grill pan from my oven - basically we want air to circulate the bottom of the pastry cases, so they cool without getting "sweaty" or soggy
  4. These can then be popped in a food-saver container in the fridge, or even frozen for later use