Potato crusted quiche

Another day, another experiment... this time, something seen at King Arthur, so I figured it had to work, right? Well, probably if you followed all the steps. Like greasing the pan. Oops. I think they had that quiche listed there as their recipe of the day, and I was intrigued by the idea of a potato crust. I figured I'd try it. And in the end, I'd say it worked out, although Ed didn't really like it. He wanted the egg part more fluffy, and I'd agree, but I did change the recipe there, plus I used skim milk, that being what we had on hand. It just doesn't cut it in the realm of quiche-making. He said he liked the crust, but thought a regular pie crust tasted better and worked better. He might have a point. I thought the crust tasted deliciously like hash browns, I didn't really need the quiche part on top to tell the truth. But having just finished off the leftovers for lunch, it was a nice combination.

Since I pretty much made my own thing, loosely following KAF guidelines, the recipe is below. If you want the KAF recipe, click here. If you want the Alex's-muddled-and-not-quite-successful-experiment recipe, read below... I do have to say that parts of this quiche were quite successful. Like the bacon. It tasted like bacon!

Potato crusted bacon-mushroom quiche
Makes one 9-inch quiche

Crust
2 large potatoes (1.5 lbs)
1 small onion
1/4C flour
1/4tsp salt
~1tsp oregano, thyme, herbes de Provence, or other dried spices

Filling
3 eggs
1/4C milk (anything but skim. Don't repeat my mistakes)
2 pieces bacon
1C mushrooms
1/2C frozen peas

To make the crust, first you have to grate an onion. I don't know how to do this, so I food-processored it instead. That seemed to work. Squeeze out the liquid from the onion. Peel and grate the potatoes, and squeeze out their juices. Add the rest of the crust ingredients to a bowl, and stir it around until its all mixed up. I had to use my hands for this.

GREASE YOUR PIE PAN.

Had to get that out of my system, sorry. Pat the potato mixture into the pie pan, and make sure to give it a pretty solid, high, edge. I didn't do this. My eggs leaked all over the place.

The crust before it went in the oven. Note the low sides - don't do this.

Bake your potato crust at 450F for 25 minutes, until the edges are golden brown. The optional step (optional because I forgot it, and my quiche worked out) is to brush the crust with olive oil, and return to the oven for another 15 minutes. I think this step sounds delicious, and I will be sure to do it next time.

This is the bottom side of the crust after Ed managed to miraculously get it out of my ungreased pan without ripping it. Grease your pan

The pan after extracting the crust...

Meanwhile, dice your bacon, and cook it until its pretty crunchy. Take it out, and cook your diced mushrooms in the bacon grease. Once the mushrooms have lost most of their water (don't put a lid on them), they should be pretty crispy, they're done.

Crack three eggs, and whisk them with 1/4C milk. Add ~1/8tsp salt, and some pepper. Put your bacon and mushrooms into the crust, and pour the egg mixture over the top. Leeks would be a great addition, I just didn't have any. Put the quiche back in the oven for 30 minutes. It shouldn't be too jiggly when you take it out. Let it cool at least 10 minutes before you cut it, it'll hold together better then.

Before the addition of egg mixture.

Cooked quiche. It was more like a fritatta, honestly...but a delicious, hash-brown-y fritatta.

I think part of the reason my quiche was so flat was that it all leaked around the edge of the crust through the holes, so it was like a potato crust sandwich, with egg on either side. I'd like to try this again, with a less holey crust. Or maybe I'll just make hash browns, since that was what I liked best about it...