Last weekend we went to a crayfish potluck party in a friend’s garden. Vegetarians at a crayfish party might sound awkward but the crayfish are actually just an excuse to spend an evening with your friends, sitting outside until dark, drinking, eating, singing songs and wearing silly hats. Life in its very essence.
Since we don’t eat crayfish, we made a couple of salads and baked a large, round version of this butternut quiche. We have been talking about making a butternut quiche ever since we first tried it, two years ago at a café in Bondi outside Sydney. Their version had large chunks of salty feta cheese and a slight tartness from vinegar that balanced the sweetness from the pumpkin perfectly, so we made ours the same way. We also used our favourite oat & almond pastry which added a nice nuttiness to the quiche. The addition of kale to the filling makes it a little greener and more substantial and the pieces on top crisps up into chips. I guess it’s not our most unique recipe but a really good one to keep up your sleeve for picnics and late-summer parties.
When we recreated the quiche the other day, we also shot this video below. It all came together in a rather stressful hour between soccer practice and dinner time and we didn’t have much light to work with either, so please excuse the blurry quality here and there.
You can probably veganize this by leaving out the eggs and replacing the feta cheese with tofu, a squeeze of lime and nutritional yeast. The pumpkin makes it very rich and creamy on its own, but since we wanted to recreate the butternut and feta quiche from our travels, we didn’t try a vegan version ourselves this time. Do let us know if you succeed with it!
Butternut, Kale & Feta Quiche
Pastry
3/4 cup / 100 g oat flour (or 1 cup / 100 g rolled oats mixed into flour in a food processor)
1/3 cup / 50 g rice flour
1/2 cup/ 50 g almond flour
2 tbsp potato starch or arrowroot
1/2 tsp sea salt
90 g / 3 oz chilled butter or solid coconut oil, cut into dices
3-4 tbsp ice-cold water
Butternut & Kale Filling
1 small butternut squash/pumpkin
a drizzle of olive oil or coconut oil
2 sprigs fresh rosemary or 1/2 tsp dried rosemary
sea salt & black pepper
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
2 large handfuls (100 g / 3 1/2 oz) tuscan kale / black kale or regular kale, remove stems and chopped (if you can’t get kale use spinach instead)
2 tbsp unfiltered apple cider vinegar (or balsamico)
sea salt & black pepper
1 cup milk of choice (we use oat milk or almond milk)
2 eggs
150 g / 1 block feta cheese, crumbled
Preheat the oven to 350°F / 180°C.
Prepare the pastry: Add oat flour, almond flour, rice flour, potato starch and sea salt to a bowl and toss until combined. Add the diced butter to the flour and use your fingers to mix the dough into a rough breadcrumb consistency. (These steps can also be made by pulsing the butter with the flour in a food processor.) Add the water, little by little, and work it together into a dough. Flip it out on a floured workspace and shape it into a thick disk. If it feels crumbly, add 1-2 tbsp extra water. Gather the dough into a disk, wrap in clingfilm and chill for about 30 minutes. Meanwhile prepare the filling.
Prepare the filling: Line a baking tray with baking paper. Peel the butternut, discard the seeds and cut into 1 inch / 2,5 cm dices and place on the tray. Drizzle with oil, add the spices and toss to combine. Roast in the oven for approx. 20 minutes or until it starts to brown and soften. Set aside. This step can easily be prepared ahead and stored in the fridge for up to a couple of days before baking the quiche. While the pumpkin is in the oven, heat oil in a skillet on medium heat and stir-fry the onion and garlic for 10 minutes until transparent and soft. Add the chopped kale, stir around and stir-fry for a few more minutes, add the apple cider vinegar and season with salt and pepper and leave for two more minutes. Set aside.
Assembling the quiche: Place the chilled dough between two baking papers and use a rolling pin to roll out the dough until you got a rough circle, about 1/8 inch / 5 mm thick. Carefully transfer it to a 10 inch / 27 cm tart pan (or rectangular as in the video). You can also press out the pastry dough directly into the pan. Trim off any excess dough then use a fork to prick it a few times. Blind-bake for 10 minutes to prevent the crust from getting soggy.
In a large bowl, whisk together milk and eggs. Add onion and kale, crumbled feta cheese and half of the baked butternut to the egg mixture and gently combine. Pour into the blind-baked quiche crust. Press extra roasted butternut into the quiche if there is still space (any leftovers can easily be used in a delicious salad or inside a sandwich). Place in the oven and bake for 35-40 minutes until golden. Serve the quiche warm with a light salad on the side.
PS. We have also been celebrating this little 2-year old smoothie maniac and kitchen helper throughout the week. Happy birthday Isac!
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