Cheese Tart (aka Quiche) with Mushrooms, Onion, Spinach, a touch of Bacon and 2 Cheeses — Parmesan and Asiago

 Shirley Mah Kooyman brought this wonderful dish to our August 2018 meeting and has graciously shared it with us.

This recipe is a compilation of various recipes with some original touches by me.  The crust is adapted from The Fannie Farmer Cookbook.  The filling is greatly modified from Julia Child’s Quiche Lorraine recipe in Mastering the Art of French Cooking.  I found split peas do a better job than dried beans as weights in the partial baking of the crust.  The split peas distribute their weight more evenly.  This recipe is designed for a 12” x 8” tart pan.  To make it in a 9” pie pan then decrease the filling by ¼ amount and use a 9” pie crust.

Homemade Pie Crust – 10”

2 ¼ cups flour
½ teaspoon salt
¾ cup (1 ½ stick) butter, cut into ¼” cubes
6 Tablespoons cold water

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1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
2. In a large bowl mix flour & salt with a whisk. Add butter pieces and cut into flour mixture with pastry blender until butter bits are very small and mixture looks like “coarse meal”.
3. Add water & mix lightly with a fork until pastry holds together in a ball. Avoid handling mixture too much or the butter bits will melt.  The pie crust’s flakiness is from the flour being coated with solid butter bits.
4. Roll out dough on lightly floured surface until dough is 2” larger than pan. Set into pan and crimp the edges.
5. (For the cheese tart you need to bake it partially so the bottom of crust won’t be soggy from the filling.) Prick bottom of crust with a fork.  To prevent crust from puffing up during the partial baking period, line with aluminum foil and fill with dried split peas or dried beans to act as weight. (see note above)
6. Bake for 10 minutes in 425 degrees F. preheated oven. Remove from oven and remove the foil with split peas or dried beans.  Return to oven and bake for another 3 minutes.  Let cool.  Make filling.

Filling for Cheese Tart (12″x 8″pan)

1 ¼ Tablespoon canola oil
3 slices of bacon, cut into ¼” pieces
¾  medium onion, diced
5 mushrooms, sliced
¾ cup frozen spinach, thawed
¾ teaspoon salt
¼  teaspoon pepper
Pinch nutmeg
¼  teaspoon tarragon
1 ¼ cup heavy cream
3 eggs, beaten
½ cup Parmesan cheese, grated
½ cup Asiago cheese, grated

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1. Heat canola oil in frying pan. When hot, add bacon and fry until almost crispy.  Remove some of the bacon fat.  Add onion and mushrooms and cook until onion is translucent.  Add spinach, salt, pepper, nutmeg and tarragon.  Mix well.  Cook until spinach is no longer wet.  Set aside.
2. In a medium mixing bowl, blend heavy cream with eggs. Set aside.

Putting it together

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
2. With the partially baked pie crust, sprinkle Parmesan cheese into the bottom of the crust.
3. Spoon the vegetable mixture on top of the cheese. Pour the cream and eggs mixture over everything. 
4. Spread Asiago cheese over the whole mixture. Bake in 375 degrees F. oven for 45 minutes or until the egg mixture is set.
5. Serves 6.