Smoked Salmon & Sunblush Tomato Quiche

Having had a fairly successful attempt at Quiche Lorraine I armed myself with a new quiche tin and tried another. The inspiration for this was, I think, found here where the photos are beautiful and make me want to buy a new camera and lighting set up. Oh well, I can but dream: new babies kind of put paid to that sort of thing.

This is pretty good but remember that smoked salmon is pretty salty so don’t be tempted to season the filling with anything other than black pepper and nutmeg. I used sunblush tomatoes; those semi-dried ones that are stored in oil that you find on deli counters but you can use normal dried sun-dried tomatoes with no bother. I’d actually quite like to try this again with plain poached salmon in lieu of the smoked as I think it would be really good.


Quiche with Smoked Salmon & Sunblush Tomatoes
serves 4

ready-made shortcrust pastry, chilled
2 eggs + 1 yolk, beaten
100ml double cream
2 tbsp quark (or creme fraiche)
pinch of black pepper
pinch of ground nutmeg
150g smoked salmon, sliced into small strips
60g sunblush tomatoes in oil, wiped of oil & finely chopped
50g parmesan, freshly grated
pinch of cayenne
a few fresh basil leaves, roughly chopped

Roll out the pastry to the thickness of a 20p piece and line a nine inch quiche or loose bottomed tart tin. Leave the pastry overhang as it is and chill for 20 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 190C.

Take the pastry tin out of the fridge and line with baking paper. Fill with baking beans (if you don’t have any dried chickpeas or beans will work just as well) and “bake blind” for 15 minutes.

Remove the beans and baking paper and brush lightly with a little beaten egg (or spray with commercial egg glaze) before returning to the oven for 5 minutes. The egg glaze will help form a moisture-proof seal.

Reduce the oven temperature to 175C and carefully trim off the excess pastry with a sharp knife.

Beat together the eggs, milk, creme fraiche, pepper and nutmeg. Stir in all but 1 tbsp of the grated Parmesan.

Evenly distribute the salmon and tomatoes over the quiche crust and scatter the basil on top.

 Pour over the egg mixture.

Bake for 30 minutes the sprinkle the reserved cheese & cayenne on top and continue baking until top is golden and middle is just set.

Remove from the oven and let cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan to come down to room temperature. If you use a loose-bottom tin the easiest way to remove the quiche from the tin is to place it on an upturned jar, which will allow you to ease the sides away.

Using a palette knife or a fish slice, slide it underneath and ease the tart carefully on to a plate or board, ready to serve.