French Provincial Cooking (47 page)

As in all regional dishes of ancient origin which have eventually become national as well as purely local property, there have been various evolutions in the composition of a
quiche.
Also called, in different parts of the province,
galette, fiouse, tourte, flon
and
flan,
a
quiche
is a flat open tart, and originally it was made of bread dough just like the Provençal
pissaladière
and the Neapolitan
pizza
. Gradually the bread dough came to be replaced with pastry while the fillings, of course, vary enormously, from sweet purple quetsch plums or golden mirabelles to savoury mixtures of onion, of chopped pork and veal, of cream flavoured with poppy seeds, of cream and eggs and bacon, of cream and cream cheese. According to its filling the tart will be called a
quiche aux pruneaux, quiche à l’oignon,
and so on. The one universally known as the
quiche Lorraine
contains smoked bacon, cream and eggs. Parisian, and English, cooks often add Gruyère cheese, but Lorrainers will tell you that this is not the true
quiche Lorraine
, whose history goes back at least as far as the sixteenth century.

There is, however, a time-honoured version containing a proportion of fresh white cream cheese as well as the cream, and it is perhaps this recipe which has caused the confusion. No doubt it is all largely a matter of taste, and for myself I find that whereas the combination of the mild flavour of white cream cheese with the smoked bacon of Alsace and Lorraine (which much resembles our own at its best) is quite attractive, that of Gruyère cheese with the same smoked bacon tends to be rather coarse and heavy. At any rate, here is a recipe for the plain cream and egg and bacon variety.

For the pastry the ingredients are 4 oz. of plain flour, 2 oz. of butter, 1 egg, salt, a little water. Cut the butter into little pieces and crumble it thoroughly with the sieved flour, adding a good pinch of salt. Break in the egg and mix the dough with your hands. Add enough water (2 to 4 tablespoons) to make the dough soft, but it should still be firm enough to come away clean from the bowl or board. Simply knead it into a ball, wrap it in greaseproof paper and leave it for a minimum of 2 hours. When the time comes to use it, roll it out very thin and line an 8-inch flan tin with it, and with a fork prick the surface.

For the filling cut 6 thin rashers of streaky bacon into inch-wide strips. Cook them in a frying-pan for a minute so that some of the fat runs. Arrange them in circles on the pastry. Have ready
pint of double cream mixed with the very well-beaten yolks of 3 eggs plus 1 whole egg, and well-seasoned with freshly-ground pepper and a little salt (taking into account the saltiness of the bacon). Pour this mixture over the bacon and transfer immediately to a pre-heated oven, Gas No. 6, 400 deg. F. Leave it for 20 minutes, then cook for another 10 minutes at a lowered temperature, Gas No. 4, 350 deg. F. By this time the filling should be puffed up almost like a soufflé, and golden brown. Let it rest a minute or two after you take it from the oven, to make it easier to cut, but don’t wait until it has fallen before serving it.

For this version, well worth a trial, the filling consists of
lb. of fresh, unsalted, or slightly salted, cream cheese, beaten together with
pint of thick cream, the yolks of 3 eggs and 1 whole egg, plenty of freshly milled pepper, a little salt, and 6 thin rashers of smoked streaky bacon. The pastry is made, the mixture is poured over the lightly fried bacon, and the
quiche
is cooked, all as in the foregoing recipe.

To get a smooth mixture it is usually necessary to sieve the cream cheese.

The
pissaladière
is a substantial dish of bread dough spread with onions, anchovies, black olives and sometimes tomatoes, baked in the oven on large heavy baking trays, and sold by the slice in bakers’ shops or straight from the baking trays by street vendors. It is not so common nowadays as it was before the war, when it could be bought hot from the oven in the early morning at every street corner in the old quarters of Marseille and Toulon. Not so long ago, however, having spotted some in a bakery in Avignon, I went in and asked for ‘une tranche de Pissaladière.’ The shopkeeper did not know what I meant. ‘What, then, is that?’ I asked. ‘Ça, Madame, c’est du Pizza Provençal,’ was the surprising reply. Odd how that Neapolitan
pizza
has captured people’s imaginations, even in Provence, where they have their own traditional version of it, the great difference being that the Provençal variety is made without the top dressing of chewy cheese characteristic of the Neapolitan
pizza
. In fact, the Provençal one more nearly resembles the traditional Roman
pizza
, and it is, I suppose, possible that it was introduced by Roman cooks during the reign of the Popes in Avignon.

Truthfully it must be admitted that both the Italian
pizza
and the Provençal
pissaladière
lie somewhat heavy upon the stomach, because of the bread dough which is the basis. The version made with pastry which is sometimes served in restaurants and private houses and may be bought ready made at
pâtisseries
is often an improvement. It is the filling which, if you happen to like the aromatic mixture of onions, olive oil, anchovies and olives, is important. The following recipe makes a splendid first course at luncheon, so long as it is followed by something not too substantial—a fine grilled fish, for instance, or a little best end of neck of lamb nicely roasted.

5 oz. plain flour, 1
oz. butter, 1 egg,
oz. yeast, salt, a little water.

Cut the butter in little pieces and rub it into the flour. Add a good pinch of salt. Make a well in the centre; put in the egg and the yeast dissolved in about 2 tablespoons of barely tepid water. Mix and knead until the dough comes away clean from the sides of the bowl. Shape into a ball, make a deep cross-cut on the top, put on a floured plate, cover with a floured cloth and leave in a warm place to rise for 2 hours.

For the filling: 1
lb. onions, 2 tomatoes, a dozen anchovy fillets, a dozen small, stoned black olives, pepper, salt and olive oil.

Heat 3 or 4 tablespoons of olive oil in a heavy frying pan. Put in the thinly sliced onions and cook them very gently, with the cover on the pan, until they are quite soft and pale golden. They must not fry or turn brown. Add the skinned tomatoes and the seasonings (plus garlic if you like). Continue cooking until tomatoes and onions are amalgamated, and the water from the tomatoes evaporated.

When the dough has risen, sprinkle it with flour and break it down again. Knead once more into a ball, which you place in the centre of an oiled, 8-inch tart tin. With your knuckles press it gently but quickly outwards until it is spread right over the tin and all round the sides. Put in the filling. Make a criss-cross pattern all over the top with the anchovies, then fill in with the olives. Leave to rise another 15 minutes. Then bake in the centre of a pre-heated oven, with the tin standing on a baking sheet, at 400 degrees, Gas No. 6, for 20 minutes, then turn down to 350 deg., Gas No. 4, and cook another 20 minutes.

A delicious derivation of the
pissaladière
was once, and perhaps still is, a speciality of a small hotel in the dusty, sleepy little town of St. Rémy, in Provence. It consisted of little open pastry cases with three different varieties of fillings; an onion and black olive mixture like the one described above, one with mushrooms and tomatoes, and the third with prawns and green olives. Those who sometimes feel tempted to put everything from the larder into a
pizza
or
pissaladière
may care to take a hint from this. Each of these little tartlets was delicious in its way, but I much doubt if they would have been so good if all the ingredients had been jumbled up together to make one mixture.