Kale quiche

In Finnish blogosphere pike has become The Fish. And kale, apparently, has been awarded the status as The Vegetable. It has lately been turned to crisps and pastas. And what a great leaf it is - it's got a great crunchy texture that puts up with  cooking without getting slimy and a deep colour which remains wonderfully vibrant even after lengthy cooking.

Even the harvest isn't about to come to an end any time soon so in case you're new to this, do give it a try! Continuing with the baking theme (that lately has taken somewhat manic proportions) I put it in a quiche. Though... am I still allowed to call it a quiche if I didn't put any cheese in it? And at which point am I going to lose any street credibility I might have potentially acquired as a food blogger if this baking frenzy continues with the current gusto?

The base is the same galette recipe I used in that harvest pie as well. Those not fromagically challenged might want to add some cheese either into the cream-egg mixture or on top of the quiche - according to the test kitchen Gruyere would be ideal. This time I substituted half of the flour with more nutritious barley flour. Or, with flour that with 97% likelihood was barley flour (I really need to start labelling the bags and jars in my cupboards!)

As a colleague of mine was making room for the mushrooms of the new harvest, I inherited some of her dried black trumpets from last year. I crumbled a handful of them directly into the base which gave it a lovely mushroomy hint the earthiness of which worked wonderfully with kale and the side of pork I was using.

You could substitute the side of pork with bacon, in which case be really careful with salt.Kale is best sliced really finely. The kale came in a 150 g bag that I used entirely apart from three leaves. Stay tuned for this week's Soup Sunday and you'll see where they went!

Base:

3.75 dl flour (half and half all purpose flour and barley flour)

90 ml olive oil

2 tsp salt

90-120 ml cold water

2 tbsp ground dried mushrooms (mine were black trumpets)

First mix the flour and oil. Then add water little at a time so you'll end with a soft, elastic dough. Roll thinly to a disc slightly bigger than the dish you're using. Easiest way to do this is between two sheets of parchment. Roll it gently around the rolling pin and transfer to the dish. The diameter in mine was 22 cm, which meant that the edge was 5 cm high. Trim the excess. Let rest in cold for half an hour and in the meanwhile make the filling.

Filling:

250 g side of pork

1 large onion

3 large garlic cloves

150 g bag of kale
a couple of tbsp thyme (dried works fine)

salt, pepper

Egg-cream mixture:

3,5 dl cream

1,5 dl milk

4 eggs

(about 1 dl grated cheese, Gruyere for instance)
salt, pepper

1-2 tbsp mustard (depending on your palate)

a big pinch of nutmeg

Chop the pork and fry on a pan starting with moderate heat so it won't burn but instead starts rendering the fat and crisps up. Finely chop the garlic and onion. Remove the hard stalk running in the middle of the kale leaves and finely slice the leaves.

Once the pork has browned a bit add garlic and a little later onion into the pan. Toss them around in the pork fat and then add thyme and kale. Continue cooking for about 5 minutes. Season well (careful with salt if using bacon!). Spread on the bottom of the pie crust. Then combine the ingredients for the egg-cream-mixture and pour carefully on top. Place the tin on tray lined with parchment (in case there's any leakage) and bake in 200° for 30-40 minutes until set. Let cool and enjoy!

Editor's note: In case you are using cheese, you'll need ( = you'll have room for) less egg-cream- mixture. Tone it down to, say, 3 dl cream + 1 dl milk and 3 eggs.

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ANYONE FOR SECONDS?