Spinach & feta quiche

Before you start

• an oven
• a 23cm tart tin with a loose base
• chill the pastry 30 minutes
• baking beans, or rice on paper

Ingredients

Serves 6 · dimmer marks are storecupboard

• 180gplain flour
• 90gbutter — cold, cubed
• 1egg yolks
• 3eggs
• 200mlcream
• 150gfeta
• 300gspinach
• 1onion
• 1 tbspolive oil
• 1 pinchnutmeg
• to tastesalt and pepper

Method

8 steps

1. fold · 10m

   Flour and cold butter rubbed to coarse crumbs, then the yolk and a spoon or two of cold water worked in until it just holds together. Worked any further than that and the pastry comes out tough.

2. rest · 30m walk away

   Wrapped and into the fridge for half an hour. Warm pastry slumps down the sides of the tin as it bakes, and there is no recovering from that once it happens.

3. finish · 12m

   Rolled out and lined into the tin with an overhang, pressed into the corners rather than stretched into them, pricked all over, then lined with paper and beans.

4. roast · 25m walk away

   Blind baked at 190°C for fifteen minutes, then paper and beans out and another ten until the base looks dry and sandy rather than shiny.

5. fry · 12m

   Onion softened in the oil, spinach wilted into it in handfuls, then the whole lot into a sieve and pressed hard until the water stops coming.

6. fold · 5m

   Eggs and cream beaten with nutmeg, pepper and very little salt, then spinach and crumbled feta stirred through.

7. roast · 35m walk away

   Filling into the still-hot case, at 170°C, until it is set at the edge with a slight wobble left in the centre. It carries on setting out of the oven, so this is the point to stop.

8. rest · 20m walk away

   Twenty minutes in the tin before the sides come away.