Easy homemade quiche lorraine recipe prepared with a shortcrust pastry from scratch. Don't skip the ham because it wouldn't be a quiche lorraine otherwise. Serve with a light salad, see serving suggestions for the quiche lorraine further below the recipe card in the post.
To make the Shortcrust, place the butter into a mixing bowl and add the flour and salt.
With your hand mix the content and add water gradually to the butter-flour mixture. Work the dough out and keep to rest in a cool place for about ½ - 1 hour.
Then take out the dough and work it out shortly again. Roll it out to 0.5 cm/0.2 inch thickness. Place the tart mold over the dough, add 2 cm radius and cut out the dough into a round shape.
Butter the tart mold and place and fit in the cut-out dough carefully into the mold.
Preheat the oven to 200 Celsius/400 Fahrenheit!
Poke with a fork randomly a few times into the dough. That will prevent the crust to deform while baking. Blind bake (pre-baking) your dough for about 8 minutes.
In a mixing bowl add the eggs, milk, and flour and combine the ingredients by whisking with a fork shortly until the mixture appears white in color. Then add the ham, ( eventually salt) black pepper, nutmeg and chopped chives and mix once again.
Pour the egg mixture into the shortcrust tart shell. Top evenly with the grated cheese.
Bake for about 25 minutes at 200 Celsius/400 Fahrenheit.
Once baked, leave out a bit to cool and cut into slices.
Notes
You can use salted Butter for the shortcrust pastry but then skip adding salt to the dough preparation.
Add 1-2 Tablespoon Water. You need to adjust and use your judgment! a humid climate might need a little less water and a dry climate more. It also depends on the flour quality.a little too much water can make it soggy, in that case, add a very small amount of flour to balance it out again
The dough must rest in the fridge so that it's hard and cold, that way you can roll the dough out.
Try to use smoked ham or lard for this quiche lorraine. Smoked lard or bacon is salted enough and therefore you wouldn't need to add any salt to the quiche filling.
You can choose to skip the blind baking of the dough by pouring the filling over the raw dough. We do that when we are in a hurry but the dough tends to be a bit undercooked or let's say less dry. If you pick that method, then add the 8 minutes to the total cooking time of the quiche.
The Quiche makes 8 servings/slices. That makes usually 2 slices per Person in Europe.
The authentic quiche is without cheese. You can make this quiche lorraine without cheese.