Cooking without Recipe - Salmon & Leek Quiche

I love Quiche. It is my go-to food when I have something left in the fridge that I need to get rid off or make a simple starter when I have friends over for dinner!

Basically, it is a bit like pizza - there is no limit to what you can do. Although Fred insist that there are some rules and tend to shake his head when I do a new strange-to him combination.

As we had some leek left the other day, I thought of a quiche.. mm.. and maybe a fish quiche for a change.. so I got some smoked salmon and had 2 tomatoes left uneaten - might as well add that too. 

As  this is a 'cooking without recipe' post, it is more of an idea to what you can do rather than a precise recipe of how to make something. I am going to also add some tips that I discovered a long the way to make a 'beautiful' looking quiche. I did a lot of trial and errors on this and welcome new tips for you too! hehehe.

Ok, let's start. You  need a base. We use 'pate brisee'.. We buy this from the supermarket and keep it frozen. If you don't have it.. it is easy to make, just look up a shortcrust pastry recipe (e.g http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/8894/basic+shortcrust+pastry) throw everything in the food processor and voila!

I usually use the basic fillings of a 'Quiche lorraine'. 

Crème fraîche + cheese (I use Emmental) + eggs.  Some people add milk.

I usually use around 1 cup of  Crème fraîche, half a bag of grated emmental and 3 eggs.. the quantity of course depends on the size of quiche that you want to make.. Here is a simple recipe you could try. There is just so many of them on the web that you'd be spoilt for choice. 

First, I sauté the leek in olive oil to soften it. Then I make cream + cheese + egg mix while the leek cools. Usually most recipes will ask that you mix the other ingredients into this mix. While it taste great, it leaves you usually with unattractive brownish top. The ingredients don't 'float' like how they seem to do in those glossy recipe books. I have discovered that you should instead 'deck' the quiche last with the 'main ingredients'. After preparing the mix, I pour it into the pastry then I add the leek, followed by the salmon and then the sliced tomato on top of this mix. This way I am controlling how it looks on the quiche instead of having one big lump of mixture. Then I pop it into the oven. I bake for usually 30 min under 180'C with fan in the oven.. and this comes out:

You can make it with anything you have left in your fridge. I love Tomato + Spinach, Ham + Zucchini + Goat cheese, the lorraine version of course.. and I once mixed 4 different kind of cheeses into on cheesy quiche..

Try it out with a conventional recipe and once you know your way around.. this is one great dish to experiment with. Usually it has lots of success in parties too! Have fun & enjoy!