Green Garlic Quiche & Grilled Veggie Burgers

The Food Nanny
April 28 & 29,2009
Meal 1: Green Garlic and Roasted Red Pepper Quiche, Green Leaf and Broccoli Sprout Salad, and Crescent Rolls
· Warm the quiche in the oven at 350° for 10 -15 minutes. Warm the rolls too if you like.
· Dress the salad and serve alongside the quiche. Meal 2: Grilled Veggie Burgers on Potato Rolls, Whole Wheat Macaroni Salad, Hand-Cut Tortilla Chips
· Heat the burgers in their foil at 350°for about 10 minutes. Unwrap them carefully so as to not burn yourself. Use a spatula to transfer the burger to the roll as it is delicate. Dress the burger as you see fit. I like spicy mayo and pickles.
· Serve the salad chilled and the chips at room temp.

Local Notes:
Green Garlic is the entire, and undeveloped garlic plant. We love it so much that I collect the bulbils (aerial clone-bulbs) produced by our garlic crop and sow them densely in coldframes. The resulting thin plants can be harvested as a vegetable coloquially called garlic grass. This is what I really used in your quiche today. If allowed to grow through the season the small plants would form single bulb in the fall. If then allowed to overwinter, this bulb would grow a garlic plant that would in turn produce a head of bulbs (cloves) below the ground as well as a cluster of bulbils atop a flower stalk. There is a fair bit to know about growing garlic, but, like beekeeping, the hard part is the terminology. Try growing garlic this year. You will be rewarded.
Garlic plants grown from a full bulb are stout plants and can also be eaten as a vegetable from tip to top before they begin to flower. This is real green garlic and it is outstanding pan roasted to serve with steak, or stir fried with other vegetables and a brown sauce. Expect to see some more in coming weeks. We love garlic, pity those who don't, and rejoice in using it in its varied forms throughout the year. More to come on garlic anatomy, botany, and gustation.
Technique: The Quiche is the Most Manly of Foods!
Hahaha! It most certainly is not. I mean if you were going to show up to a fight with a food item to defend yourself would you choose a quiche ? How about a whole procuitto, or a kebab, or even Bananna's Foster. To say I can cook a quiche is to say : Yes, I can appreciate delicate, subtle things like lace, or art, or Mozart. Yet what is a man if he cannot cook a quiche?
Quiche is custard. It differs from its stunt double the frittata in this way. A frittata is a baked omelet whereas the custard is specifically a mixture of egg and cream or milk in a specific ratio. This ratio varies as widley as there are custards to make and enjoy. Despite the fact that a frittata may contain some cream etc. quiche is more closely related to ice cream than frittata.
The quich must have dairy, and I like the proportion of approximately 3:1 dairy to egg for quiche as opposed to approximately 7:1 cream to yolk for creme brulee, another custard sibling. With custards, a convenient rule of thumb is that 8 yolks will 'set' ( make firm ) one quart of cream. That is a conservative bet.
Quiche also has the interesting addition of savory cheese give body and flavor. Water and oil are the enemy of custard and they must be carefully regulated in the additional ingredients chosen to embellish your quiche. But fear not, remember that bacon and spinach are two of the best quiche ingredients, just be judicious in your rendering of them.