Asparagus Quiche with Homemade Pastry
The whole bunch of green asparagus gets used, and you find the woody ends without a knife: hold the spear at both ends and bend it, and it breaks exactly where the tough part stops. No blade finds that spot so precisely.
After blanching, the pieces go straight into cold water. That stops the cooking and fixes the green — without that step the asparagus turns grey-green in the oven.
Eight whole tips are kept aside and fanned out on top at the end. A creamy filling of egg, cream and two cheeses, and a butter pastry that works at the first attempt.
With a shop-bought base and no kneading, the same idea is the spinach quiche. And with whatever is left of the bunch, the cream of asparagus soup.
Ingredients
- For the pastry: 250 g all-purpose flour (plain flour)
- 100 g cold butter, in cubes
- 1 egg
- 3 to 4 tbsp cold water
- 1/2 tsp salt
- For the filling: 2 bunches of green asparagus (about 500 g)
- 3 eggs
- 200 ml pouring cream
- 150 g mild melting cheese or mozzarella, in cubes
- 50 g grated Parmesan
- 1 onion, chopped
- Salt, pepper and nutmeg
Method
- 1
Make the pastry: rub the flour with the cold butter and the salt until no large pieces remain. Bring it together with the egg and the cold water, kneading as little as possible. Wrap in cling film and chill for 30 minutes.
- 2
Snap the woody part off the asparagus: bend them from the base and they give way on their own where the tough part ends. Keep 8 whole tips aside to decorate and cut the rest into 3 cm pieces.
- 3
Blanch the asparagus for 3 minutes in boiling salted water and transfer them to a bowl of cold water: there they stop cooking and the green is fixed.
- 4
Soften the chopped onion in a little oil until translucent. Let it cool a little.
- 5
Beat the eggs with the cream, add the cheeses, the onion, salt, pepper and nutmeg.
- 6
Roll out the pastry and line a buttered 26 cm tart tin. Prick the base with a fork.
- 7
Distribute the pieces of asparagus, pour in the mixture and arrange the reserved tips in a fan over the surface.
- 8
Bake at 190 °C for 40-45 minutes, until the filling is firm in the centre and the pastry golden. Let it rest for 10 minutes before cutting.