Month: December 2007

The other day I got a quiche dish by Emile Henry. Emily Henry products are glazed earthenware for baking and cooking in the oven. They come in a range of bright colors with a white finish on the inside.

I find them really great for cooking in the oven. They are non-stick, easy to clean and do not mind ovens, microwaves, freezers or dishwashers. They have a nice, clean design and especially the red ones look great!

To try out the new dish, I made mushroom quiche. I put the recipe together from two recipes I found on Epicurious: Mushroom-Shallot Quiche and Madame Quiche’s Quiche au Fromage.

For quiche it’s important to get the right quantity of dough versus vegetables. Too much dough and the quiche gets dry and bland. Too little dough and it won’t get solid and becomes a mushy mess.

Here are my recommendations:

The pastry I buy directly from the deep-freeze department of the local store. It’s just easier.

For the dough, let’s start on the basis of three eggs, which will result in a quiche for 2 – 4 people. Then add 75ml of milk and 75ml of creme fraiche. So basically should have 25ml of milk and creme per egg. I find that quiche get a lot more flavor if you add the creme fraiche.

Then you want an even amount of vegetable (or other ingredients). So in my case I went for 225g. For this quiche I used 125g mushrooms and 100g cheddar cheese. I find cheddar cheese great for dishes made in the oven in combination with eggs. It adds a little sharp, spicy taste.

You will want to bake the quiche for about 40 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius. Then take it out of the oven and let it sit for about 5 minutes to solidify.

Simple, fun and tasty!

Here are the steps to follow:
1. Get deep-frozen pastry from store, let thaw for 1 hour
2. Put some oil in quiche dish, spread pastry to make bottom
3. Make dough – 1 egg, 25ml milk, 25ml creme fraiche per person
4. Prepare vegetables and cheese, 75g per person, stir fry mushrooms, grate cheese
5. Spread out vegetables in dish on top of pastry
6. Add cheese to dough and pour over vegetables
7. Cook for 40 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius
8. Let sit for 5 minutes

I love my global knives and use them a lot. Especially the GF-33 chef’s knife is in constant use and requires maintenance and sharpening.

The web site of Yoshikin, the manufacturer of global knifes, provides advice on maintenance. Sounds good in theory. But in reality it requires purchasing several ceramic sharpening whetstones; setting them up rather precariously on a wooden board as foundation, near the sink with water running for rinsing during sharpening; and finally meticulous sharpening technique to get the angle of the blade just right while sharpening.

Simply too difficult.

So instead I would bring my knife to the shop for sharpening about once every six months. This worked fine for me although I always thought it was expensive (EUR 10+), below expectations in sharpness and also meant not having my knife for at least a few days.

So I was quite happy when recently I discovered the minoSharp – a handy little tool specifcally made for sharpening global knives.

It has two ceramic whetstone wheels – a coarse and a medium one – mounted at exactly the right angle. You fill it with water which will rinse the whetstones wheels when they turn during sharpening. Simply draw the knife through the wheel seven or eight times and voila!

The minoSharp is super easy to use, less than 15cm large and also a good deal for about EUR 20!