Potato&Onion and Gorgonzola&Barba di Frate Quiches

This week, I've planned to cook and bake quite a lot, because I simply can not resist all those gorgeous spring vegetables. I have plenty of ideas, now I only need the opportunity to realise them. Friday is going to be busy once more, because I am going to bake some rhubarb tarts for sale again. I am already excited!


These quiches have been on my mind already for a month, but yesterday finally I managed to bake them. One of them is a simple potato and onion quiche with a lot of cheese on top. Feel free to add some bacon, however it stands on it is own and is perfect without it. The other quiche a gorgonzola-barba di frate quiche. In case you can not find barba di frate simply use some baby spinach instead.


Ingredients:
(pastry recipe adapted from Michel Roux)
250 g flour
150 g soft butter, cut into pieces
1 teaspoon salt
1 pinch of sugar
1 egg
1 tablespoon cold milk
400 ml cream
2 eggs
fresh majoram
3 medium potatoes
1 onion
100-150 g cheese e.g. gruyére
1 bunch of barba di frate or 2-3 handful of baby spinach
70-100 g gorgonzola
1 tablespoon pine nuts
nutmeg
salt, pepper

Put the flour in a large bowl and add the butter, salt, sugar and egg into the middle. Rub these ingredients togehter with your fingertips. Then rub the butter mixture into the flour until it resembles coarse breadcrums. Add the milk and knead a dough as fast as possible. Chill dough for an hour. The pastry can be kept in the fridge for a week or frozen for 3 months. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Roll out pastry about 2 mm thick and line a tart form and . Line the base of the pastry with baking parchment and then fill it with baking beans and blind bake for 15 minutes. Remove the beans and parchment and return to the oven for another 5 minutes to cook the base. Let it cool. Whisk together the eggs with the cream, add fresh majoram to the half of it, and season both with nutmeg, salt and pepper. Slice potato and onion with a help of a mandoline and place layers of potato on the bottom of the prebaked tart, season each layer, then put a layer of onion on it and cover with the rest of the potatoes. Pour egg-cream mixture over it and sprinkle with grated cheese. For the other quiche put spinach or barba di frate onto the bottom of the tart, pour egg-cream mixture on it, add gorgozola chunks and pine nuts on top. Bake for 25-30 minutes on 180°C.