Aunt Emma's Never Fail Pie Crust

3 c sifted flour
1 1/4 c Shortening
1 tsp salt
1 egg, well beaten
5 Tbsp water
1 Tbsp vinegar

Cut shortening into flour and salt.
Combine egg, water, and vinegar in a separate bowl.
Pour liquid into flour mixture all at once. Blend with spoon until flour is all moistened.
It can be re-rolled without toughening. Will keep in refrigerator for two weeks or divide into balls enough for one pie and wrap in Saran wrap and freeze indefinitely.

Makes 2 crusts

Saturday, February 4, 2012

Turns Out Real Men Do-

Gorgonzola-Apple Quiche- who knew?

This week's challenge- make a quiche with a French pastry crust, Gorgonzola (Italian) cheese, onions and apples.  Alrighty then.

Hate to admit this (and it's weird) but the blue-veined cheeses tend to taste like- 'er I say it? Vomit.  I will never order Bleu Cheese or Roquefort dressing on my salad. Ick. But I press on. I have been fooled before. I start out thinking I'm not going to care for a certain dish and I end up loving it. Will it happen this time? 

The tart dough recipe was a challenge. I'm used to my aunt's recipe that uses vegetable shortening as the fat. Dorie's calls for butter, of course. I chose to use the pastry cutter rather than the food processor method. That's what I'm familiar with.

 

Got to use my new French rolling pin. Woohoo! Works great!
The dough is wrapped and chilled for 3 hours.

Once it's cold through and through, it's rolled and gently fitted into the tart pan. I had a little trouble making it fit. It's not a text book job but I'm happy with it.
 As Dorie says, "What you stretch now will shrink in the oven later."


Partially bake the tart shell, covered with foil, until lightly golden.

You can see I got a little shrinkage.

The shell bottom is covered with diced, cooked onion...


Diced gala apples were scattered over the onion. The Gorgonzola was crumbled and scattered over the apple.



Cream and eggs are combined and seasoned with white pepper and salt before pouring over the cheese-topped ingredients



What happened in the oven was magic. And the smell of it was wonderful!


The combination of flavors- onion, apples, cheese (oh my!)- was... delicious.  I never would have guessed!  Another winner from Dorie Greenspan's Around My French Table and our awesome cooks at French Fridays with Dorie. 

7 comments:

  1. Your crust looks great. I the crust recipe was wonderful made in the food processor. It came together quickly and handled well. Just wish I'd paid attention to the wait time involved. I think I'm going to keep a couple batches in the freezer so it's always available. Glad you liked the quiche even though you don't like blue cheese.

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  2. I never would have guessed that these flavors would go together so well either. In the end, I really like it too.

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  3. Your quiche looks fantastic and so delicious. It's amazing how some ingredients do
    not look too appetizing but turn out great in the recipe. You just never know what to expect. Tricia and I loved this and will certainly be making this again. I'm beginning
    to think that making extra crust is a good idea, seems we always need one and it saves
    so much time having it prepared ahead of time.

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  4. Oh, is that the nylon rolling pin? I just recently acquired one and LOVE it...
    Glad this was a hit for you - it's true, you never know what to expect. For me, that's a bit of the fun part.

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  5. Your tart shell looks so pretty. I need to get over my traditional pastry hangups and give it a try again.

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  6. I'm coveting your French Rolling pin, it's on my Valentines list, but not sure it will make it. I loved this also, and so did sous chef who refused to eat blue cheese dressing on anything!

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  7. Glad you went for the blue! And that's a great looking crust.

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