Friday Fuck Ups: The Quiche That Wasn’t

ed. note — please give a big ES welcome to our newest contributor, Allyson, who graces us this week with her finest fuck-up.  Although I must say, I actually want to eat this one, unlike some other FFUs of the past. (I’m looking at you, fried guac balls.)

My husband and I are moving this weekend, so our cooking goals for the week involved shopping as little as possible and using up everything that’s slightly old but still edible. We’re going to keep the things we’ve bought in bulk, but we just don’t want to transport our entire kitchen so we’ve been focusing on working with what we have in order to reduce both the amount of stuff we have to move, and potential waste when we have to throw things away.

On Sunday night, I decided to do something to get rid of the frozen pie crust that had been sitting in our fridge for longer than we could remember. Rather than attempt a pie (I have a bad track record with baked desserts), I decided to try a quiche. Nevermind that I had only made one quiche in my entire life and had long-since lost the recipe. Nevermind that the only cheese we had on hand was sliced pepperjack. I could do it.

Or could I…

First, I chopped up some red and yellow peppers, sautéed them in olive oil, and set them aside. Then I started on the filling. I combined 4 eggs, 1 ½ cups of milk, and then ripped up 1 ½ cups of pepperjack slices and put them in a bowl. Next, I added ½ a teaspoon of salt and a heaping teaspoon of chili powder. Beating everything together with my mixer, I first ran into problems. The shredded cheese slices would not blend. I tried the mixer on a variety of speeds, but the cheese bits just stuck to the sides and the bottom of the bowl. I decided to forge ahead.

I put the peppers in the bottom of the pie crust and then poured the egg mixture in after them.

Unfortunately, I had overestimated the filling proportions, and the crust overflowed. Once I managed to get the spill under control, I noticed that all of the cheese was still stuck to the inside of the bowl. I scraped the cheese out into the quiche, and stuck it in the oven.

In the oven at 350, and I went to check on it 30 minutes later and saw that the cheese had formed a delicious-looking crust on top. Not the way a quiche traditionally looks, but I figured it would still taste good. However, when I cut into the cheese crust, I noticed the egg portion was not fully cooked. So I stuck it back in the oven for 10 more minutes. And then another five. Finally, the quiche was done.

Except it wasn’t really a quiche. Not only did the cheese form a crust, but the egg layer was more akin to a meringue than a quiche filling. The flavors all tasted fine, but I didn’t like the way the different textures worked together. Plus, this dish turned out to be structurally unstable; I tried three times to cut a slice that would stay together, but didn’t have any success. My husband actually liked this experiment, but I think I’m going to find some actual recipes and make a few practice quiches before I try to freestyle something like this again.