Quick Quiche

Quiche, which is pronounced as "kee-chey" is a pie-like dish of an unsweetened pastry shell filled with custard made from eggs and milk, containing cheese and other ingredients such as vegetables, seafood and chicken/beef/ham bits. In other words, the main ingredients for a quiche is eggs, milk and cheese, you could still go away with the crust pastry. As the photo above, I baked it directly onto my pie-pan.

My motto in cooking is simple but flexible. I like one dish but can be varied into many other taste and look, and took the shortest time possible to be made. I first tried the quiche in mini bite-size using my mini muffin trays, it was a hit with my boys, including my husband, as all 2 young boys and the old one :) love to eat eggs! Then I also tried the standard muffin size. Quiches are good for breakfast and tea-time, but my boys can eat these any time of the day!

The recipe I'm going to share is the basic quiche recipe which then you can play and explore further.
I did try using beef strips too.

This smells MARVELOUS and taste SOOOOO HEAVENLY! You should really try it! So here goes the basic quiche recipe. The recipe given is for 6 standard muffin size.

Ingredient:

6 medium eggs (1 egg for each quiche)
3/4 cup milk (equal to 2 tbs for each egg)
1/2 tsp salt
A pinch of ground pepper and dried parsley
6 tbs grated cheese (equal to 1 tbs for each quiche)
Your choice of fillings

Method:
1. Beat the eggs, milk, salt, ground pepper and dried parsley together to get the basic custard
2. Oil the tray cups or pan you are using, please ensure you oil it well. You can use vegetable oil or butter
3. Fill 3/4 of each cups with the custard, then put in 1 tablespoon of your choice of fillings and 1 tablespoon of cheese. If you are not using any other fillings, you can double the cheese amount to just have cheesy quiches
4. Bake for 10-20 minutes depending on your oven, or until the top turn golden brown and the custard harden (cooked through)

The best things about quiches is, as you notice in the recipe, it's high in protein. 1 quiche equal to 1 egg! I've tried minced meat/chicken fillings which I stir-fried with a bit of olive oil (if you want to be healthy) or butter and dash of dried ground herbs. I've experimented with just steamed veggies such as the frozen mixed veggies (peas, carrots and corns), broccoli, asparagus, diced potatoes and cherry tomatoes. I've also explored with crabsticks and stir-fried tuna. Once I had left-over grilled chickens, I just shred and minced them then used as quiche fillings too!

For the herbs, you can play around with others apart from parsley - like oregano, basil, thyme, rosemary and marjoram. Marjoram taste almost like oregano actually. Or you can just maintain only the ground pepper, because I know some don't really like herbs while picky-eater kids' eyes will bulged out when they see those tiny green parsley *LOL*

I've also tried many cheese. Feta does wonders to quiche BUT you have to finish them the same day, and the best is all in one meal :) The reason is feta taste great but it makes the quiche becomes watery, hence easier to make you sick. Mozzarella and cheddar is the best choice, but I do like creamy camembert too. Brie is too light perhaps for quiches so I usually mix it with other cheeses.

The best quiches I had is either those mini muffin size because they are bite-size...ooooohhhhhh....so easy to just plop the whole thing in your mouth! Our next favorite is using the beef strips though it can be tricky. The strips are supposed to cover the cups but as it bakes, it will shrink and curl inside hence giving the look as you can see up there. Below are also some of my collections - simple cheesy ones (no other fillings) and just veggies which you can see the broccolis :)

You can freeze the quiches (except for those using feta cheese) as make-aheads.

Freezing and reheating method:
1. After the quiches are thoroughly cool, wrap them individually in plastic wraps before putting in a sealed freeze bag and freeze them.
2. To reheat, you need to take them out of the freezer and transfer them into the fridge at least 12 hours before the intended cooking time if you don't plan to eat them now. Else, you can straight-away reheat in the oven or microwave for 2 minutes. Reheated quiches cannot be kept long so you need to straight-away finish what you have reheated