Quiche and Kuchen

The weather turned a bit British on us today (serves me right for mentioning the sunshine this morning), so I felt more like cooking than I have done recently. Lunch was a cheese, onion and thyme quiche. Only the thyme was from the garden, as I had a total crop failure this year with the onions. I hope that next year I'll be able to start them off in the greenhouse and won't lose them in amongst the weeds, which is what happened this year. The thyme, however, was grown from seed this year and has done really well.

Onion, Thyme and Cheese Quiche

Line an 8"/21cm cake tin or flan dish with shortcrust pastry made with 8oz (2 cups) flour, 4oz (½ cup) butter and enough water to bind it. I always make pastry in the food processor - it's really quick and a lot easier on the hands. Put foil or baking parchment on the pastry shell, cover it with dried beans and bake for 10 minutes at 420°F/215°C. Remove the beans and foil when the cooking time is up.
Meanwhile, melt some butter and a little olive oil in a pan and fry two sliced-up onions on a medium heat until they are very soft and going brownish round the edges. Add a couple of teaspoonsful of thyme leaves at the end of the cooking time. Beat three eggs with enough milk to make the volume of liquid up to around 15 fluid ounces/450ml then mix this with the onions and pour into the empty flan case. Grate some cheese (I used about 3oz/85g of Cheddar, but Gruyère would be good, too) and sprinkle over the flan.

Put the flan onto a baking tray and cook for 30 minutes at 320°F/160°C. Good warm or cold.

The cake was the 'mystery ingredient' chocolate cake that VP published in her Open Garden. Very easy to make and the whole cake didn't survive for more than 20 minutes once it had cooled down enough to eat (we didn't bother with the icing, either). The mystery ingredient did sound a bit strange, but it didn't put anyone off eating the cake! I notice that the cake surface seems to have formed in the shape of Friar Tuck. Most appropriate.