Main meals

Wild garlic quiche recipe

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Wild garlic comes into its own during the spring. This wild garlic quiche recipe from Not Just a Pretty Plate is the ideal way to celebrate the season’s bounty.

Perfect for the entry-level forager, the long, tapered leaves of garlic are easily identifiable, although you’ll undoubtedly smell the herb before you see it. The fragranced fronds create a heavenly-scented carpet across Britain’s woodlands from early March onwards.

Garlic can be used to flavour everything from bread and butter to ravioli and risotto. The only downside? It lingers underfoot just marginally longer than it does on your breath, with the young, delicate crop subsiding by May.

Once foraging season is over, enjoy this wild-harvested, hand-dried wild garlic instead. Just use 10-20g depending on how strongly flavoured you prefer your wild garlic quiche.

Serve your wild garlic quiche with a crisp, fresh salad, or alongside organic new potatoes. It also makes a fantastic sharing dish for a spring picnic with friends, alongside a chilled glass of kombucha. Discover some of our favourite kombucha brands here.

Discover more of our favourite garlic recipes

Ingredients

    For the shortcrust pastry:

    • 225g plain flour
    • 100g butter
    • 1 egg yolk
    • 2-3 tbsp water

    For the filling:

    • 350g bacon, chopped
    • 1 large onion, chopped
    • 350g wild garlic, rinsed (roughly 7 handfuls)
    • 5 eggs, plus one egg white (leftover from the pastry)
    • 300ml double cream
    • 300ml milk
    • 175g Gruyere cheese, grated

    Method

    1. To make the pastry – rub together the flour and butter until it resembles fine breadcrumbs, you can do this by hand
      or in a food processor. Add the egg yolk and the water, work together as little as possible until you form a dough. Leave to chill for half an hour in the fridge.
    2. Preheat the oven to 180C. Roll the pastry on lightly floured surface to the thickness of a pound coin and use to line a 28-30cm deep quiche tin. Line with baking paper and baking beans, and blind bake for 20 mins until golden. Remove the baking beans and paper, and return your pastry case to the oven for another 5 mins until golden brown. If there are cracks in the pastry, add a small amount of grated cheese to the cracks and return to the oven – this will seal them in the most delicious way!
    3. Fry the chopped onion with a little salt, then add the bacon and cook until onion is translucent, and bacon is browned.
    4. Whisk together the eggs, cream, milk, and seasoning – go easy on the salt if the bacon is particularly sodium-heavy.
    5. Blanch the wild garlic in boiling water for 30 seconds, then drain and squeeze out the excess water.
    6. Scatter the bacon, onion and wild garlic over your browned pastry base, sprinkle over half of the cheese, pour over the egg mixture, and top with the remaining cheese.
    7. Cook at 180°C for 30-35 mins, until filling is just set and golden all over. Remove from the oven, and allow to cool for 10 mins before removing the tin. Delicious hot or cold, enjoy with a well-dressed crunchy green salad.
    NOTES
    To prepare ahead of time you can make the pastry the day before.
    This quiche can also be frozen. Simply cool, wrap in clingfilm, and freeze for up to 2 months
    Photography by Zoe Warde-Aldam.