Beetroot and Goats Cheese Quiche
Our blog this week comes from Julia Rumsey and George Rook. You may not have heard their names before, but if you’ve been to The Squash Court you certainly would have tasted their food! Julia and George are the pair that cook up all the seasonal delights we serve in the café and they're going to be sharing one seasonal recipe a month on the Deans Court blog. This week it’s their famous beetroot and goats cheese quiche, read below to find out how they make it and learn a little bit more about them.
Julia and George started out as enthusiastic home cooks but food has always been central to both of their lives. Julia grew up as one of 4 girls and started cooking from a young age, learning to pair ingredients and create healthy, delicious family meals by watching her mother in the kitchen. George's cooking really took off when she had children of her own, she says that having the responsibilities for little people's diets is what made her think about the food she was putting on the table and the kind of ingredients she was using.
Both having young families Julia and George fit their work at Deans Court around their home lives, Julia works in the cafe 2 days a week and they both now spend every Friday cooking up a storm in the Deans Court kitchen, preparing all the seasonal salads, tarts, quiches and cakes for The Squash Court Café. Both are passionate about only using fresh, seasonal ingredients and they devise their recipes based on the produce we have seasonally available in our garden. Their love of experimenting also means that they provide the café with a plethora of healthy, free from options. Using different flours, unusual types of oil and substituting ingredients mean that we always try to have at least one vegan, gluten or diary option on the menu.
Below is a recipe for their classic beetroot and goats cheese quiche. This quiche has been one of our best sellers in the cafe this summer, and we're not surprised, it's delicious! The tangy flavour of the goats cheese is offset perfect by the sweet, earthy beetroot, producing a bright red quiche that looks almost too good to eat. (Almost!)
The beetroot season lasts from early July to October and as it’s sadly coming to an end we suggest making the most of it by cooking up a few of these quiches to enjoy in the next few weeks and keeping the remainder in the freezer to bring out when those long winter days call for a bit of added vibrancy.
Beetroot and Goats Cheese Quiche
Ingredients
Shortcrust pastry
- 200g plain flour
- 50g butter
- 50g margarine
- 2 tablespoons cold water
- Place flour and fat into a blender and mix until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add the water until combined and leave to rest for 30 mins before rolling out.
- Blind bake the pastry case for 15 mins with foil, then remove foil and bake for a further 10 mins.
Filling
- 2 onions softened gently in frying pan
- 400g beetroot (grated)
- 60ml balsamic vinegar
- 1 tablespoon caster sugar
- Few sprigs of fresh thyme
- 150g soft goats cheese
- 3 eggs
- 300ml double cream
- 100g cheddar cheese (grated)
Method
- Soften onions gently in butter in a frying pan. Once soft, leave until ready to use.
- Place the grated beetroot, balsamic vinegar, sugar and thyme in a frying pan with a little olive oil. Cook gently until softened.
- Combine the eggs, cream and the grated cheddar together. Season to taste.
- Place the softened onions and beetroot mixture in the cooked pastry case, pour over the filling.
- Top the quiche with the slices of goats cheese, and bake at 180 degrees for 25 mins or until golden and set.
- Decorate with fresh thyme.
