Scandanavian Smoked Fish Quiche

With a removable-bottom quiche pan comes great enthusiasm.

Last Monday, my mom and I made a pilgrimage to Bed, Bath, and Beyond to purchase some additions to our meager collection of cooking supplies at home. Two hours and a great deal of excitement later, we came home with 3 non-slip mixing bowls, a block of knives, and a removable-bottom quiche pan.

Over the summer, I had spent a great deal of time in Boston where Alex was living and working for the summer. On the days when I was there and he had to work, I amused myself by exploring the Boston and Cambridge areas. One of my favourite places to visit was a shop in Harvard Square (also with a location on Beacon Street) called Black Ink. The shop is a treasure trove for all kinds of kooky, fun, clever, and generally unnecessary things that you just have to have. The two things that I purchased there over the summer were both unnecessary, but at least practical--a Not for Tourists Guide to New York City, and a Nordic Bakery Cookbook filled with scrumptious recipes for novel foods. A book with a passage that reads, "This recipe is traditionally made with reindeer meat, but as reindeer meat is not widely available, we have replaced it with bacon" (LMAO).

There are at least six recipes in the book that required this fabled quiche pan, and I wanted to make them. All of them.

The first one I am attempting is a Smoked Fish Tart with leeks and cheese.



The Recipe:

13 tbsps unsalted butter

3 1/2 tbsps sour cream

1 cup flour (the recipe calls for all-purpose, but I made it with whole wheat)

1 tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

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1 tbsp canola oil

2 leeks, trimmed, cleaned, and thinly sliced

3 eggs

2/3 cup milk

1 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese

small handfull of dill

7 oz smoked / cooked fish of any kind (I used cod)

sea salt and pepper

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For the crust:

Cream the butter and sour cream in a mixing bowl. In another bowl, combine the dry ingredients. Add to the butter mixture and mix until a dough forms. Roll the dough into a ball, and then flatten into a disk. Wrap with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours (overnight is better!).

For the quiche:

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. If you are using fresh fish instead of smoked, cook it at 450 degrees (8 minutes per 1/2 inch of thickness).

Start to prepare the filling. Heat a skillet with the oil and add your leeks. Cook them on medium-low for about five minutes or until they become slightly soft.

If you are a first-time-leek-cooker like me, here is how to prepare a leek:

Feel the outside skin of the leek and cut off the leaves where they start to feel tough. If the portion attached to the white part feels tough cut it until you have the white part and a bit of the light green part left. Cut off the roots and cut the leek lengthwise. Then slice into thin slices. Rinsing leeks is important, but is also a pain. Put your leek slices in a collander, and rinse them thoroughly to get the dirt and sand out from between the thin layers.

While your leeks are cooking, prepare the other filling. Combine the eggs, milk, dill, and cheese and stir well. Season with salt and pepper.

Here comes the slightly tricky part: you will need to roll out the dough and then place it into the tart pan. My dough was very hard to handle because it became soft very quickly after being taken out of the fridge, which made it impossible to roll and move. Take the dough out of the fridge and roll it immediately even if it seems stiff. If you worry about making it into the pan, take the removable bottom of the pan and roll on top of it, before popping it into the rim of the pan. Do this step quickly to avoid a mess / having to re-chill the dough.

Once it is in the pan, press it to the sides and bottom and remove excess dough from the top.

Put the leeks in the crust, as well as the fish. Then pour in the wet mixture. Make sure everything is evenly distributed.

Place in the oven (preferably on a cookie sheet to avoid mess) and cook for 25-30 minutes, or until the pastry is brown.

Serve wam or cold.

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Check out Black Ink at their website: http://blackinkboston.squarespace.com/

Buy the book at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Nordic-Bakery-Cookbook-Miisa-Mink/dp/1849750963/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1316533222&sr=1-1