Crustless Quiche

One of my most versatile and favourite dishes to make which pretty much uses all the random items you have in your fridge. I make crust-less quiches because my waistline cannot afford too much puff pastry. But if you want a crust, you could simple buy the store bought crust and bake it separately before pouring in the filling as per the recipe. This dish is a close cousin of the frittata. http://yumexperiments.blogspot.com.au/2012_10_01_archive.html

Simple cheese and onion quiche

With the quiche, you can really be creative, it can be as elaborate and as simple as you wish.

You can have it alone for a light snack, with a salad for a more balanced meal or with some brown rice for a fuller meal. You could make quiches in advance and cut and freeze individual portions for convenience. 

Tomato, spinach and ham quiche served with broccolli and chickpea brown rice

The basic ingredients of a quiche are essentially:

- 4 eggs (makes 4 servings, I like this ratio because one egg per serving gives adequate nutrients and doesn't send your cholesterol sky-rocketing)

- 1 1/2 cups fresh whole milk/ cream (I like using milk as it's less fattening but you can always use a combination)

- 1/2 cup flour

- Salt and pepper to taste

- 50g melted butter

- 1 cup shredded cheese 

- 1 to 1 1/2cup favourite filling

with the fillings you can always add whatever rocks your boat like ham, mushroom, onion, spinach, the possibilities are endless. My favourite combinations are: mushroom, tomato and spinach. Ham, onion and mushroom. Bacon, tomato and onion. Bacon, spinach, pumpkin. However do note that onions and bacon should be browned before adding for extra flavour (or you can just throw it in as-is if you're really lazy) Mushrooms should be sautéed prior to adding so that they release the water in them.

Directions:

Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees celcius. Beat basic ingredients together and add your filling. Mix well. Bake for 40min until cooked and browning at the top. Note, to test if quiche is cooked, use a cake spatula and it should come out clean. Alternatively, give the receptacle holding the quiche a quick jerk. The contents should not wiggle in the receptacle too much as if it were still liquid inside. Let the quiche cool a little then cut into slices and enjoy. 

Wontons

It's been awhile since I made wontons owing to the work involved in making them. But, since I've more than one wonton fan in the house I decided to make some.

Ingredients:
450g minced pork
5 dried mushrooms, rehydrated
100g prawns
1 thumb sized knob of ginger, grated
3 cloves garlic, grated
4 sprigs of spring onion, chopped
4 tablespoons light soya sauce
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1.5 tablespoon oyster sauce
4 dashes of white pepper
3 tablespoons of chinese cooking wine
1.5 table spoons of corn flour mixed with water
1 tablespoon sugar
1 packet of 500g wonton skin

Method:
Mix all the ingredients together. If you're not sure of the taste, put a teaspoon size of filling into the microwave for 30s and taste from there. It is better to taste and adjust than make a big batch of wontons that you don't like. There are a few ways to wrap wontons, the simplest being just fold the square skin into triangles and pinch the end. But, I feel that this method allows the filling to escape easily. Hence, after folding it into a triangle and sealing the ends with water, I folded the two bottom corners of the triangle towards themselves and finally I folded the top of the triangle backwards. You will end up with a neat little rectangular parcel. The filling above makes about 40 plus wontons (sorry I can't get the exact number because the wontons were disappearing as I was cooking them, no prizes for guessing the culprit though...) You should put about a heaped teaspoon worth of filling into the wontons.

Wontons can be boiled in water till they float, or deep fried. Otherwise, you could also pan fry them. (Those in the picture were pan fried)

If you have left over skins, you might also want to try this american inspired filling to use them up:
5 tablespoons cream cheese
2 sprigs spring onion, chopped
salt and pepper to taste
Wrap the wontons and either pan fry or deep fry them.
The result is stunningly delicious. I kid you not.