Quiche Lorraine a Long Way From Lorraine

Quiche Lorraine a Long Way From Lorraine

Best quiche I’ve ever eaten was at a small outdoor café on the Place St Jacques in Metz, France. Haven’t been back in over a year and the light and exquisite quiche still calls to my taste buds, tenderly and sweetly.  Taste buds don’t forget.

The real thing, in Lorraine

Want the history of Quiche Lorraine?  Didn’t think so and frankly it’s a little hard to track down the origin among the plethora of dishes made with eggs and cream.  The name may have come from the German word for cake, Kuchen, but even that’s as uncertain as a blind man walking the plank.  

But, history or no history, I decided to make quiche.  You may be surprised I didn’t just fly to France and sit at the outdoor café, or sign up for Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. My wife was surprised, too.  But, in these times of stress, one does not venture far from home.  One may not be able to venture back.

Before I give you the recipe, you have to understand that for every sexy woman in Lorraine, there are at least two versions of quiche.  Most share the common ingredients:  eggs, crème fraiche, lardons, and Gruyère cheese.   But, if you stray from the standards, the culinary sky is the limit. Salmon.  Vegetables as far apart as onions and broccoli and asparagus.  Various flavorings.

Sadly, after my death defying bike ride a mile or two to the local grocer, I discovered crème fraiche and lardons are not part of the American diet, and the cost of Gruyère requires a down payment and credit check.

For the crème fraiche I had several options:  Use heavy cream alone, or add one tablespoon of buttermilk to a cup of heavy cream and wait 12 hours at room temperature for it to turn into crème fraiche.   Or, I could shoot from the hip and use half heavy cream and half sour cream. I drew fast and shot from the hip.  Fortunately, I’m a good shot.

Rather than forfeit my meager allowance on a bit of Gruyère, I grabbed a package of Baby Swiss. Flavors are nearly the same.

Lardons morphed into four slices of thick bacon, some fat removed, cut in small bits, fried and drained on a paper towel.

Of course, my friends in the U.K. or on the continent, will not have these problems.

Now that you know the secrets of my almost Quiche Lorraine, here’s the recipe.

Quiche Lorraine a Long Way From Lorraine

Heat the oven to 400ºF (200ºC)

Pastry crust (see note below the recipe for instructions)

1/2  pound of thick cut bacon, cut into bits, fried and drained

1 1/2 cup chopped baby Swiss cheese (usually comes sliced)

6 large eggs

3/4  cup of heavy cream

3/4  cup sour cream

Vegetarians never fear!  Just leave out the bacon/lardons and you will still have an amazingly tasty dish!

Smacking it together

Roll out the pastry crust, fit it in your pie plate, prick the bottom and sides with a fork, and put it in a 400ºF oven for 7 minutes.

When the piecrust comes out of the oven, turn the oven down to 350ºF, and set the pie crust aside.

Meanwhile, beat the eggs in a bowl, add the cream/sour cream and beat until blended or your significant other complains about the noise. Add the cheese and continue beating, complaints or not, until all is blended. 

Scatter the bacon chips on the bottom of the crust, then pour in the egg mixture. You may need a spatula to scrape all the bits of cheese out of the bowl.

Bake for 40 minutes.  All ovens are different, so check after 30 minutes.

After baking, put it under the broiler for 2 minutes, but watch it carefully.

I served this with a nice Alsatian rosé.

So how did it compare with the Alsatian version, the thing of dreams? Very, very close.  But, when I get the chance, I’m still going back to Place St Jacques.  You know how it is about the memory of old loves.

And yes, I am a guy who likes to quiche and tell.

No dinner is complete without an espresso and a glass of a charming Armagnac!

Pastry Crust:

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour

large pinch of sea salt

8 tablespoons of butter, cut into bits

6 tablespoons cold water

Put all the ingredients, except the water, in a food processor and pulse until all is blended. Should look like coarse meal.

Put the water in by spoon-full to spread it around.  Pulse again until the dough clumps together.  Roll it out thinly on a surface dusted with flour. 

So simple!  You will find yourself using this flaky crust over and over.

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Another Happy Day in Metz, France

Another Happy Day in Metz, France

I drive to Metz fairly often and have posted a few blogs about the fabulous old city, the capital of the province of Lorraine.

https://stroudallover.blogspot.com/2012/02/meet-me-in-metz-city-of-dragons.html

https://stroudallover.blogspot.com/2017/08/return-to-metz.html

https://stroudallover.blogspot.com/2016/09/just-another-fab-day-in-metz.html

https://stroudallover.blogspot.com/2012/03/lunch-to-remember.html

https://stroudallover.blogspot.com/2014/12/marche-de-noel-christmas-markets-in-metz.html

Looking at the list of my verbosity, I guess I’ve spent more time there than I thought.  Lots of things bring me back, many of which I’ve already written about:  The Cathédrale de Étienne, the Marché Couvert (fabulous covered market), and the old stone city in general.

It’s not just the city, but France that draws me like a horse to wine.  I do like France, with it’s relaxed formality that insists all proper conversations begin with “Bonjour!”  France is more cultured than Spain, more excitingly alive than Germany…but oh, poor France, Italy! is friendlier.

Everyone talks about the food in France, or the food and wine, or the famous art and artists, and who can forget the lyrical language that makes Les Misérables sound infinitely better than The Miserables and Jean so much more sophisticated than John, which in American vernacular can also signify a toilet.  How about Guy (Giee) instead of just plain Bill.

Ok, I’ll get to my plan to talk about the food, but first come the French women.  A French woman, no matter the age or facial beauty, is so graceful and inherently sexy that if she is married, you feel a sudden urge to drop to your knees and kiss her wedding ring. 

The simplest movement shows you how aware she is of her body.  I glanced at a seated French woman subtly smoothing her skirt.  She must have been eighty, but if my significant other hadn’t been close at hand… (Please, let’s keep this our little secret!)

French women show the casual sexiness that exudes an attitude of, “Of course everyone is staring, but I’m used to it.”  Meanwhile her French husband displays the casual arrogance that says, “I’m way too good for her.”

Is it getting hot in here?  Anyway, I need to chat about lust lunch.  But, first a stroke of the broad brush.  The French can teach anyone how to eat, with the very possible exception of the Italians.  But, with much of the western world content to simply eat, the French dine.  A glass of wine and some excellent French bread compliments every meal. (Sorry, Germany, your bread is good, but the French bread makes you  exclaim “Mon dieu, ce pain est incroyable!) Then why are the French generally slender? Besides the natural Gallic sangfroid my guess is:  bicycles, walking, conversation over meals, small portions, contentment and pleasures of taste that override the American need to eat faster than a thieving monkey, then race for the seat on the couch.   Eye appeal? 

The French chef is a master or mistress of eye appeal. Even the casual Bistro cook will please the eye as well as the palate, as well as the taste.

In Metz, I normally go to a favorite bistro at 27 Place St. Jacques, just down a windy street from the cathedral and the covered market.  Place St. Jacques is a large open square with bistros, ice cream shops, bars and restaurants and a few stores lining all four sides.

My special place is Enfin, which proclaims Bistrot & Cuisine Sympathique!  I have only eaten lunch there, wait a sec, many lunches there.  I only order one meal:  Quiche (after all, I’m in the Province of Lorraine), which comes with the best pomme frites (French fries, although it translates to apple fries), a small salad with vinaigrette and a slice or two of light tan bread that I want the recipe for.  This is one of the best meals, not only of the bistro variety, but of any variety.  I’ve had Michelin three stars meals that don’t measure up to this simple fare.

Of course, I accompanied the meal with some mineral water and a glass of the house white wine.  If you can’t trust a constantly crowded, bustling French bistro to pick out the wine, whom can you trust?

I finished with an espresso, which was so tasty and acid free that it needed no cream or sugar.  But, what the hell, I wasn’t driving home, so I added an Armagnac to the bill.  Best Armagnac I’ve ever tasted.  Smooth as silk and a perfect accompaniment to the espresso.  Had Armagnac?  Oh, you poor, sober drinker!

Armagnac, the oldest brandy region in France, comes from the south, just a bit southeast of Bordeaux.  It’s another area like the Champagne and Cognac regions, and like the others, the name Armagnac is protected and cannot be used for brandy produced elsewhere.

Hunger and thirst satisfied, we move onward.  In Metz there are many onwards and even on shaky legs I sally forth.

First we hit the covered market for Mirabella plums and some violet colored French garlic.

Mirabella plums are only grown in a couple of spots in France and if you want a tree, by international agreement, you must import it from Lorraine.  So Mirabella plums are almost impossible to find in the U.S.  But, in Lorraine, if it’s August, it’s Mirabella time for fresh fruits and cakes and liquor and cookies and jams.

But, the market was not the end of my Metz Day.  We wandered the brick paved 

streets, stared into many a boulangeries (bakery) and pâtisseries (pastry shop).

Not to mention a liqueur stores, in my quest to buy my new favorite Armagnac, 

Duc de Camilhac.  Didn’t find it.  

Also studied fashions in the  boutique windows.  I learned quickly that sex is

the product.  I can imagine a 75-year-old Frenchman, with the patina of age, 

breath that would rust a fender and in the thick fog of Alzheimer’s, thinking, 

if I only buy those jeans and that yellow polo, the girl of my dreams will surely...

We stopped for another café at the Bar de la Luna, right across from the covered

market and right by the cathedral.  This time it was a cappuccino and no Armagnac.

I started thinking, or daydreaming how easy it is to become such a jaded traveler

that you can walk right past a cathedral and even go inside and still have the first

thought be, "Where can I get a beer?"

But, Catholic or not, pause for a moment to contemplate the extreme detail of

the magnificence of the Catholic vision to bring the glory of God to earth in a form

that the middle age royalty and peasants alike could view and understand.  If a

 picture is worth a thousand words, how many sermons is a cathedral worth?

Now, how about that beer?

Hell yes, I enjoyed my day in Metz, as I always do, and as an Austrian once

said, “Al be bach!”

Just Another Fab Day in Metz

the Moselle, or Mosel flows through Metz

The Cathedral

Just another wonderful serendipity in Metz

I don’t get to Metz, France that often, no more than six times a year.  You think that’s a lot?  Have you lost your senses AND your joie de vie?  Every time I go, the town is as fresh and exciting as that first glimpse of the woman of your dreams.  Never thought of Metz, the Capitol of Lorraine, as a woman?  Well, she is.  Beautiful, alluring, charming, delicious.  A mysterious past, with a wink and a nod toward the modern.  A beckoning smile.

So, what is it I find that beguiles me?  Saint-Étienne, the St Steven cathedral, with it’s soaring columns and jewel-like stained glass? 

Or, the Marche Couvert, the wonderful covered market that before the French Revolution (1789) was designed to be the Bishop’s Palace?  Maybe it’s the strangely wandering cobblestone streets, with their stoic stone buildings? 

Or those delightful French institutions, the open-air bistros?  All of it.  Every bit.  And more. Don’t forget the Shopping!!  Last time I went I ended up with two patés, bread, cheese, sausage, tomatoes, and a new pair of shoes.

I find it strange that even people who live within an hour and a half’s drive haven’t been. What stops them?  Lack of a firm foundation in the French language?  Piffle.  The thing to remember is, the first word out of your mouth when you speak to someone in France, whether it’s a policeman, or shopkeeper, or any person on the street, is Bonjour!  But pronounce it correctly:  Bo-njou’re! Google: French to English and practice before you go.  After the mandatory greeting of bonjour, you can say anything you damn well please, in any language, and you’ll get a polite response.  And, shopkeepers are superb readers of waving hands, pointing fingers and bright smiles.

Still uneasy? In the square right next to the Cathedral there’s a huge tourist information center to guide you to the most popular places and even the unpopular ones.  Hey, I’ve already given you a list of enchanting excitement within a two-block radius of the cathedral.  Don’t know which bistro to choose?  Try the Tous Les Jours, number 27 in the open square of the Place St. Jacques.  Try the tempting quiche, after all you’re in Lorraine.

So, now I’m going to leave you an array of photographs to whet your appetite for your first exciting trip to Metz.  But, believe me, one trip to visit this lady with the almost sinfully radiant smile won’t be enough.  Is it ever?

What better place to dine on Quiche Lorraine?

Oh, those bistros!