Coronation Quiche with Spinach and Tarragon

The King and Queen Consort have personally chosen a recipe for ‘Coronation Quiche’ in celebration of the Big Lunches due to be staged to mark their coronation.

Charles and Camilla shared the recipe for the open baked savoury tart, which features spinach, broad beans and tarragon, the royal family’s official Twitter account revealed.

For the late Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation in 1953, Coronation Chicken – cold chicken in a curry cream sauce with a well-seasoned dressed salad of rice, green peas and mixed herbs – was invented to feed the foreign guests who were entertained at Buckingham Palace after the ceremony.

A palace chef, dressed in a white uniform, embroidered with the late Queen’s EIIR cypher, and a chef’s hat, was shown making the quiche in a video posted on social media.

The royal family’s website described it as “a deep quiche with a crisp, light pastry case and delicate flavours of spinach, broad beans and fresh tarragon.

“Eat hot or cold with a green salad and boiled new potatoes – perfect for a coronation lunch!”

Quiche is known as a classic French dish, but is said have actually originated in Germany in the Middle Ages, with the word quiche from the German kuchen, meaning cake.

Great British Bake Off contestants have made quiches in the past as part of 1980s-themed challenges.

Even cookery queen Delia Smith has struggled with soggy-bottomed quiches and her website contains advice on how to avoid the problem.

Smith wrote for a recipe for Quiche Lorraine: “For years I’ve been experimenting with this type of recipe to eliminate, forever, the problem of the soggy pastry base that seems to plague so many people, myself included.

“I will stress that the container must be metal, not porcelain or glass.”

Here is the recipe for Charles and Camilla’s Coronation Quiche

1 x 20cm Flan Tin

Serves: 6

Ingredients

For the pastry:

• 125g plain flour
• pinch of salt
• 25g cold butter, diced
• 25g lard
• 2 tablespoons milk
• or 1 x 250g block of readymade shortcrust pastry

For the filling:

• 125ml milk
• 175ml double cream
• 2 medium eggs
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh tarragon
• salt and pepper
• 100g grated cheddar cheese
• 180g cooked spinach, lightly chopped
• 60g cooked broad beans or soy beans

Method

To make the pastry: sieve the flour and salt into a bowl; add the fats and rub the mixture together using your finger tips until you get a sandy, breadcrumb-like texture. Add the milk a little at a time and bring the ingredients together into a dough. Cover and allow to rest in the fridge for 30-45 minutes

Lightly flour the work surface and roll out the pastry to a circle a little larger than the top of the tin and approximately 5mm thick.

Line the tin with the pastry, taking care not to have any holes or the mixture could leak. Cover and rest for a further 30 minutes in the fridge.

Preheat the oven to 190°C.

Line the pastry case with greaseproof paper, add baking beans and bake blind for 15 minutes, before removing the greaseproof paper and baking beans.

Reduce the oven temperature to 160°C.

Beat together the milk, cream, eggs, herbs and seasoning.

Scatter half of the grated cheese in the blind-baked base, top with the chopped spinach and beans and herbs, then pour over the liquid mixture.

If required gently give the mixture a delicate stir to ensure the filling is evenly dispersed but be careful not to damage the pastry case.

Sprinkle over the remaining cheese. Place into the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes until set and lightly golden.

What do you think of the Coronation Quiche dish? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Also read: Smoked Ham and Cheese Mini Quiches

– With PA