Quiche with crackers and ground meat
I don’t know what my obsession with quiches is lately. Maybe the fact that I always end up cobbling together something decent, whatever ingredients I throw in. Perhaps because it is so adaptive.
For this one, the story goes like this. While strolling along the isles in the supermarket, looking for tea-time snacks, I picked a box of crackers. Lured by the fancy packaging, I didn’t think it would turn out to be the old humble salted crackers. About a month on, it kept sitting in our snack basket, untouched. So finally one day, I decided on making dinner out of this snack because clearly, nobody was going to eat it on its own.
I do not deny that these crackers are so good with toppings such as cheese and tomato and not bad without any additions too. In fact, it is the perfect way to throw together a quick and delicious lunch or snack with quite a little fuss. But, these modest crackers are just a bit boring on their own.
My memories associated with these date back to the nineties when back home, ‘Parle Monaco’ used to be the widely available version of these classic salted crackers. Whenever we would fall sick as kids, our grandmother would impose strict dietary restrictions. For flu or cough, the rules revolved around the old sard-garm theory and everything classified as sard was prohibited. For example, a runny nose and one couldn’t dream of having anything that had tomatoes in it. Similarly, for stomach disorders, nun chai (Kashmiri salted tea or pink tea) was prescribed for breakfast, lunch and dinner. These crackers were allowed as accompaniments to the nun chai probably because they are light and bland, and therefore, fairly gentle on the stomach. As far as I remember, this home remedy worked wonders each time.
Anyway, so I used these crackers to make crust for quiche. Paired with sesame seeds, the crust came out so much better than the store-bought pie crusts that I keep going back to the recipe off and on. And those crackers with fancy packaging keep finding their way to my shopping cart every once in while. For quiches, and the fact that they might as well come in handy in the unanticipated event of a stomach disorder.
I love quiches for many reasons, as I have said before. If you are comfortable experimenting like me, you can throw in fillings of choice or any leftovers. Or stick to the recipe. For this particular one, I used leftover keema ( cooked lamb mince). For the base, you can go for a ready-made pie crust, use shortcrust pastry sheets like I used in this quiche from an earlier post or make your own with the help of crackers, for which you’ll find the recipe below. This crust can serve as a base for any pie and it is so flavourful. The key to a really nice pie is the crust. What do they say? The crust is to pie what trust is to marriage, if I remember it right. I present this recipe after meticulous testing (and tasting) in my kitchen.
Quiche with cracker crust and ground meat filling
Ingredients
Cracker Crust
- 150 gm plain salted crackers
- 6 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tbsp toasted sesame seeds
Filling
- 200 gm keema (cooked lamb mince)
- 2 eggs
- 80 ml milk
- 2 tbsp shredded cheese (like cheddar, mozzarella, etc.)
- Fresh herbs (like basil)
- 5-6 Cherry tomatoes
Instructions
Cracker Crust
- Preheat the oven to 180°C.
- Crush the crackers either in a food processor or by placing them in a zip lock bag and using a rolling pin.
- Combine the cracker crumbs with olive oil and toasted sesame seeds. Mix well. The mixture will be sandy but use more oil if the it is too dry. Place it in the baking dish: ideally a quiche tin but cake tin, spring form pan or just any oven safe dish will work as well. For this recipe, I used a 9 inch spring form pan.
- Press the mixture into the bottom of the dish and slightly up the sides. Use the bottom of a measuring cup or a glass to press it until it is compact and the crumbs are firmly packed in.
- Bake it for 8 minutes in the middle rack of the preheated oven. Allow it to cool for 10 minutes before putting the filling in.
Filling
- Whisk the eggs along with the milk in a bowl. Add in the chopped fresh basil or other herbs.
- Fill the crust with cooked lamb mince, making sure it is evenly distributed.
- Pour in the egg mixture.
- Top with cheese and tomatoes.
- Bake in the oven for 35-40 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the quiche comes out clean, indicating the eggs have cooked through. Allow it to cool for 10 minutes before slicing.
Notes
- For a buttery and extra delicious crust, use butter in place of olive oil. Low fat, buttermilk-based butter works as well. Using 3 tbsp butter and 3 tbsp oil also works well.
- For maximum flavour, do not forget to toast the sesame seeds before using.
- Any leftovers can be used instead of ground meat.
- There is no cheese in the authentic recipes for quiche. Cheese can be omitted.