Recipe by Helen Gurnett (www.delectish.com / @delectish) a Leiths School of Food and Wine Diploma Student.
This recipe goes along with the herbs in our Autumn Culinary Herb Box.
Common Garden Thyme (Thymus vulgaris) is a Mediterranean herb which has a delightfully woody fragrance of hedgerows. It works beautifully with many of Autumn’s seasonal vegetables such as mushrooms and squash as well as with roast potatoes and garlic.
Thyme, perhaps more surprisingly, also works well with any milk based food – even ice cream. In this recipe, I bake it slowly in a quiche with Taleggio cheese to release all of its deeply warm, savoury character.
As we experience some still warm days but cooler, darker evenings, I find the unctuous, satisfying nature of this quiche enormously comforting. Small wonder it is a real family favourite.
Serve with some late season tomatoes, a few rocket leaves and perhaps even a glass of white wine.
Ingredients:
- 500 g ready made short crust pastry
- 1 large red onion, thinly sliced
- 1 tbsp oil
- 6 sprigs of thyme
- 4 eggs
- 350 ml whipping cream
- 100 g Taleggio cheese, sliced
- Salt and ground black pepper
Steps:
- On a floured surface, roll out your pastry to 5cm wider than the tin.
- Line the tin with the pastry, cover with cling film and refrigerate on a baking sheet for 30 mins.
- Meanwhile, gently heat the oil in a pan with a lid. Add the onion and sweat under a damp piece of greaseproof paper with the lid on until it is very soft. Add 2-3 thyme sprigs for the last few minutes.
- Pre-heat the oven to 200c/180c Fan/Gas Mark 6
- Line the pastry case with greaseproof paper and fill it with baking beans or lentils. Blind bake for 20 - 25 minutes. Remove the baking paper and beans and return to the oven for another 5 minutes.
- Seal the pastry by brushing with some beaten egg and baking for another minute.
- Turn the oven down to 150c/130c fan/Gas Mark 2.
- Mix together the remaining eggs and the whipping cream and sieve it into a jug. Season well and add the leaves of 3 – 4 more thyme sprigs.
- Remove the thyme stalks from the onion and spoon it into the base of the pastry case. Spread out the slices of Taleggio on top.
- Pour in the egg and cream, leaving a pound coin sized gap at the top.
- Bake for 45 – 50 minutes until there is a small wobble left at the centre.
- Leave the quiche to stand for 20 minutes before serving.
If you love the sounds of this recipe and herb-based cooking check out our Master Classes and other Herb-based recipes.
