This recipe from Taste fit the bill when I was looking for a quick quiche to make for lunch. “Oh wow,” said my guest, “you made your own pastry.” Actually, I didn’t, but apparently I’m skilled at manhandling frozen pastry until it looks homemade. Good to know.

This was wonderful, but I think that’s easy to do when smoked salmon and camembert are involved. More importantly, it was simple, and I still had plenty of time to put it together despite running a litte behind time before my lunch guests arrived.

ingredients:

1 large sheet of ready-rolled shortcrust pastry, thawed (I found a special large size that said it was for quiche)
1 tbs olive oil
1 leek, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 bunch asparagus, cut into 4cm pieces
100g smoked salmon
100g camembert, thinly sliced
2 eggs
1/2 cup cream
1/3 cup milk
1 tbs chopped fresh dill
salt & freshly ground pepper

First, let’s deal with the pastry. Preheat the oven to 190°C. Line a 23cm quiche tin (if it doesn’t have a removeable bottom, grease it well beforehand) with the pastry. Either pierce the pastry with a fork a few times, or line the pastry with baking paper and fill with rice to weight it down. Bake for 15 minutes. Remove the paper and rice. Reduce the oven to 180°C and cook for 10 minutes or until golden and crisp.

While that’s cooking away, you can put together the leek mixture. Heat the oil in a frying pan, add leek and garlic and cook for 5 minutes or until soft. Add the asparagus pieces and cook for a further 2-3 minutes until tender. Set aside to cool slightly.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the cream, milk, eggs and dill, and add some salt and pepper if you like.

OK, you’ve got your golden pastry base, the cooled leek mixture (it doesn’t matter if it’s still fairly hot) and the cream mixture.  Spread the leek mixture over the pastry. Top with the sliced camembert, and then the smoked salmon.  Pour the cream and egg mixture over everything else. The liquid will probably sit below the smoked salmon – don’t worry, it will puff up.

Pop the quiche into the oven for 30 minutes, or until set and golden. Set it aside and let it cool for 10 minutes, before slicing and serving.