Truffle cheese and mushroom quiche

I love truffles. It's a bit of a marmite food but I am a FAN and this truffle cheese and mushroom quiche recipe has both truffle and cheese in, two of my favourite things. Following the news that London and the South East of England are going into Tier 4 lockdown, I was sad for all my friends and family (who all live in this area) would now be separated for Christmas, unable to see each other as originally planned. I'm in California and would be unable to see them anyway, but it made me so homesick to think of so many people I love having to cancel their much-anticipated plans to go home for Christmas, right at the last minute.

When I'm sad and anxious, I find that cooking really helps me to recenter and get me back on track mentally. It's having something methodical yet creative to do, prepping ingredients and making something delicious. I was in need of comfort food so decided to use the rest of some wild mushrooms we bought at a farmers market and make a quiche. But not just any quiche. I'd normally put gruyere in but this time I went with the full force of my homesickness and got Toma Truffle. It's a semi-hard creamy cheese from Point Reyes near San Francisco and it's flavoured with Italian Black Truffles from Umbria. We get through a lot of it. But if you don't like truffles, just use gruyere.

So I was craving truffle cheese and mushroom quiche but I was also feeling pretty emotionally exhausted, and at this point, I was incredibly grateful that we had some frozen ready-made pie crusts in the freezer. I had bought these as a backup for the pie crust I was making for Thanksgiving in case that went wrong (I did NOT want to ruin the pumpkin pie at my first ever Thanksgiving), but thankfully it turned out fine so I had this leftover.

Mushrooms are best in the autumn when they are in season, but dried mushrooms work really well as they taste so rich, plus the water used to rehydrate them can be used as an alternative to meat stock/broth in soups or in a risotto.

Ingredients

The best thing about this cheese and mushroom quiche recipe is how quick and easy it is to make.

• Ready made pie crust
• Truffle cheese, or gruyere
• Mushrooms
• Milk
• Shallot
• Nutmeg
• Eggs
• Thyme
• Butter
• Salt and pepper

See recipe card for quantities.

Instructions

Prick the pie crust a few times all over with a fork, then fit it with foil and fill with baking beads. Blind bake for 15 minutes at 425F (or according to your oven) and then remove the foil and beads and bake for a further 10 minutes until golden brown. Remove from the oven (but leave it on) and allow to cool for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat some butter in a frying pan and add the shallot until translucent (will only take a minute) before adding the mushrooms. Fry until cooked and slightly browned, stirring through some fresh thyme, salt and pepper. Remove from the heat.

In a bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, cream and nutmeg with some more salt and pepper. Grate the cheese and get ready to assemble!

Put half the grated cheese at the bottom of the pie crust, then half the mushrooms layered on top. Ladle in half of the milk/cream mixture (if you just slosh it in you'll lose the layers) and then repeat. Put back in the oven at a lower temperature of 350F for 40 minutes or until the filling looks set and not too loose when you jiggle it slightly.

Place on a cooling rack and leave to rest for 20 minutes before enjoying with a nice green salad simply dressed.

Hint: leave a useful hint here, like let the grill run for 4-5 minutes to burn off any remnants, then clean it. I like to use this bristle-free barbecue brush (affiliate link) for cleaning the grill.

Substitutions

Here are a couple of ways to change this cheese and mushroom quiche up to make it suit you.

• Cheese - instead of truffle cheese you can use gruyere
• Crust - use gluten free pie crust to make this dish gluten free

Storage

Once cooked this cheese and mushroom quiche will last in the fridge for 2-3 days.

These ingredients don't stand up well to freezing.

Food safety

We sometimes take for a granted that we have years (or decades) of cooking experience, that the average visitor may not. Add to, or remove from, the list below with health and safety tips.

• Cook to a minimum temperature of 165 °F (74 °C)
• Do not use the same utensils on cooked food, that previously touched raw meat
• Wash hands after touching raw meat
• Don't leave food sitting out at room temperature for extended periods
• Never leave cooking food unattended
• Use oils with high smoking point to avoid harmful compounds
• Always have good ventilation when using a gas stove

See more guidelines at USDA.gov.