hash brown crust quiche

I am a big fan of Martha Stewart, and when my friends have jokingly called me ‘Martha’ because of something I have said or done, I am not-so-secretly chuffed.

I recently saw this pin on Pinterest. Hash brown crusted quiche! With my penchant for using frozen pastry for my quiches, I thought that using homemade hash browns would be a great alternative. Firstly, I could control the ingredients a lot more, putting less rubbish and preservatives into my cooking. Secondly, it’s got to taste good.

I’ve got to say though, Martha really let me down here. On going over to the recipe, I saw that she was using store bought hash browns and mashing them up to make the quiche base. I was pretty disappointed. Whilst I will unashamedly use purchased potato gems (Napoleon Dynamite calls them ‘tater tots’) as the odd side for my children’s dinners (all right, I eat them too, occasionally!) I wouldn’t mash them up to use as a base for something that could possibly be quite easy to make from scratch.

Anyway, making hash browns is easy. I would only use three ingredients: potato, egg and flour. I thought that I would give this hash brown crusted quiche a go. And let’s face it, it sounds pretty awesome when you say ‘hash brown crusted quiche’ aloud.

I gave it a go, and guess what? It worked really well! My family thought I was a complete legend and the quiche is a lot more filling than normal. It meant I didn’t have to worry about a side dish for the meal, other than a salad.

Hash brown crusted quiche
Ingredients
(hash brown crust)
4 small potatoes
2 eggs
1-2 Tbsp plain flour (I am going to try this w/o flour next time and see how it works)
Salt

(filling)
3 bacon rashers
1/2 cup grated cheese
2 eggs
1/2 cup cream
1/2 cup milk
1 tomato for topping

Method
(base)
:: to make the has brown base, peel the potatoes and grate them. Press as much moisture out of them. Sprinkle them with salt and leave them for a few minutes, then press excess liquid out.
:: whisk the 2 eggs and then mix them into the grated potato.
:: add the flour and mix
:: press potato mixture around the base and edges of a greased and lined 20cm springform cake time.
:: bake base at 170 for 15-20 minutes, until lightly golden. Professionals would probably place a cup or two of dried beans on a sheet of baking paper on top of the base to keep it nice and flat.

(filling)
:: dice the bacon and place it on the quiche base
:: place the cheese on top of the bacon
:: whisk the two eggs and add cream and milk and mix
:: gently pour the custard over the bacon and cheese
:: top the quiche with sliced tomato
:: bake at 220 for 25 minutes, or until the custard is firm (the quiche won’t wobble)
(The tomato will make the quiche wetter)

The good thing about this recipe is that you can make the base ahead of time. You could change the ingredients for the filling but I would avoid very wet ingredients, or at least ensure to remove excess moisture from vegetables before putting into the quiche.