If real men don’t eat quiche, I want to sit next to one the next time I’m at a brunch or luncheon where Pear and Roquefort Quiche is served. This is undoubtedly the best quiche I’ve ever encountered and I’ll eat my helping as well as any piece a real man leaves behind.
Michaël Dessimiroff gave me the recipe many years ago, when he was chef on the Horizon II, a hotel barge
floating the canals of France. Trained as a pastry chef before joining the barge staff, Michaël baked particularly marvelous quiches, one for every day of the trip. He said that the secret to a great crust is to not overwork the dough and to refrigerate the dough after each handling. He also said that cooks can make a variety of different quiches by using one basic recipe and altering a few flavoring ingredients.
Although it can be done, I can’t imagine altering Michaël’s Pear and Roquefort Quiche as to me it was the pièce de résistance of his entire quiche repertoire, offering a flawless balance of delicate flavors and a perfect ratio of rich buttery crust to soft custard filling. Also I can’t imagine any real man refusing this quiche—although, mon dieu, I do keep trying to find one.
PEAR AND ROQUEFORT QUICHE
2-1/2 ounces (about 1/3 cup) Roquefort cheese (or good quality blue cheese)
1/2 cup whipping cream
3 eggs
1/4 cup sour cream
1-1/2 cups whole milk
Pinch each: nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, ginger
Salt, to taste
Pepper, to taste
1 tablespoon fine, dry bread crumbs
1 partly baked 10-inch pastry shell (recipe follows)
1 small pear, peeled, cored and thickly sliced
1 to 2 teaspoons honey
On a plate, using a fork, mash cheese with some of the cream to form a smooth paste; transfer to a medium bowl. Gently beat in remaining cream. Add eggs and beat until mixture is blended, but not foamy. Whisk in sour cream, milk, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, salt and pepper; set aside.
Sprinkle bread crumbs in center of pastry shell. Arrange pear slices in a circular pattern over crumbs and drizzle with honey. Set pan on a baking sheet. Stir egg mixture and pour into shell. Bake in a preheated 375°F oven until quiche has puffed slightly and top has lightly browned, 30 to 35 minutes.
Cool slightly on a rack. Release side and bottom of pan and slide quiche onto a serving platter. Serve quiche warm or at room temperature.
Yield: About 8 servings.
PASTRY SHELL
2 cups all-purpose flour plus additional flour for rolling dough
12 tablespoons chilled salted butter, cut into pieces
1 egg, beaten
Pinch salt
Sift 2 cups flour into a mixing bowl. Add butter. With fingertips, rapidly rub butter and flour together until mixture is in small crumbs. Make a well in center; add egg and salt. Stir gently with a fork to incorporate egg, then gather ingredients into a rough ball and knead gently and quickly to form a dough. Put dough on a flat surface and, with the heel of your hand, smear about three tablespoons of the dough into a thin streak; repeat until all dough has been smeared once. Gather dough into a smooth ball, flatten ball, wrap with plastic or foil, and refrigerate at least 30 minutes.
Roll dough on a lightly floured surface to an 11- to 12-inch circle. Transfer to a 10-inch, false-bottomed quiche pan and gently maneuver dough to line pan. Turn excess overhang into pan and press to make double-thick sides to the pastry case. Trim off excess dough. Prick at 1/4-inch intervals with the tines of a fork. Place a sheet of foil, shiny side down, in pan and smooth over dough. (The foil should be large enough to come about 2 inches above rim of pan on all sides.) Refrigerate several hours or overnight.
Fill foil lining with pastry weights, dried beans or uncooked rice. Bake in preheated 425°F oven until bottom of shell is set and sides are beginning to brown, 14 to 16 minutes. Remove foil and weights. Return shell to oven and bake 2 minutes. Remove pan from oven and put on a rack to cool.
Yield: One 10-inch pastry shell, partly baked.







though







between planes—at least long enough to pop into La Carreta Restaurant for an overload of rich and flavorful Cuban food. Recent renovations brought this Cuban chain from the terminal outside of security to the inside. Now located across from gate 37 in terminal D, the restaurant is super accessible to transit passengers, especially those flying American.
If time allows, and the cafeteria is serving Cuban specialties (not in the morning when ordinary American breakfast is served), I join the line and load a tray with thick chunks of roasted pork or fork tender lamb shanks or maybe the arroz con pollo (chicken with yellow rice).


So long, farewell, auf weidersehen, goodbye; I’m dumping all my bad eating habits and hooking into good health with the help of Canyon Ranch’s new cookbook, NOURISH. Aptly subtitled, ‘indulgently healthy cuisine,” this 372-page tome diffuses lasagna, moussaka, enchiladas, chicken pot pies, double chocolate brownies, key lime pie and other diet weapons of mass destruction, with recipes (over 200 of them) that favor flavor over fat, the natural over the artificial and satisfaction over sacrifice.










16 years, is offering up to 50 percent off its regular rates for booking and travel by April 8, 2010.