Get Cooking_ 150 Simple Recipes to Get You Started in the Kitchen - Mollie Katzen [52]
3. Pull about 10 mint leaves from the bunch, and cut them into thin strips with a sharp knife. Set aside the rest of the bunch for garnishing.
4. Scatter the crumbled feta into the pie crust. Shake the peas in the colander a couple more times, then dump them into the crust on top of the cheese. Tilt and gently shake the pie pan a few times to evenly distribute the peas.
5. In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, flour, salt, and a few grinds of black pepper. Stir in the scallions and the mint strips.
6. Pour the egg mixture carefully over the feta and peas, filling the crust right up to the top. (If there’s any extra, you can save it to add to your scrambled eggs for tomorrow’s breakfast.)
7. Carefully transfer the pie to a foil-lined baking tray (which will catch any filling that might overflow during baking, saving you possible oven cleanup), and slide the tray into the oven. Bake for about 1 hour, or until the crust is golden, the filling is puffed up, and the surface feels tender but solid when you (carefully) touch it with a fingertip. If the edges of the crust become too dark before the hour is up, cover the quiche very loosely with foil to protect it.
8. Remove the tray from the oven and let the quiche rest for 10 minutes before serving. During this time, cut the remaining mint leaves into thin strips to sprinkle over each serving. Serve hot, warm, or at room temperature.
GET CREATIVE
Drain and chop a few marinated roasted peppers or sun-dried tomatoes and add these along with the scallions.
Accompany this with sliced tomatoes drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with coarse salt and oregano. Or serve it with a big salad; Greek Salad (Chapter 2: Salads) is a particularly good match.
mushroom popover pie
Makes 2 to 3 servings
Popovers you know. Ditto pie. So what’s a popover pie? It’s what I call this large, dramatically puffed, Yorkshire pudding–like, custardy-centered pancake (that’s the popover part), baked with mushrooms and served in wedges (that’s the pie part). And if you’re a mushroom lover, you’ll call it addictive. The recipe calls for both white mushrooms and fresh shiitakes for lots of deep mushroom flavor. If you can’t find shiitakes, it’s okay to substitute cremini (brown) mushrooms or just use all white ones. Room-temperature eggs take on much more volume when beaten than cold ones, and for recipes like this that are all about puff, that’s important. The best way to bring eggs to room temperature is to break them into a bowl while they are still cold, and then cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a plate and leave it out for about an hour before you begin.
2 tablespoons butter
½ cup finely minced red or yellow onion
½ pound fresh white mushrooms, stemmed and chopped into ¼-inch pieces
¼ pound fresh shiitake mushrooms, stemmed and chopped into ¼-inch pieces
1 teaspoon minced garlic (about 1 good-sized clove)
1¼ teaspoons salt
½ teaspoon dried thyme
¼ teaspoon dried rosemary, crumbled
3 large eggs, at room temperature
1 cup milk
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1. Adjust the oven rack to the center position and preheat the oven to 375°F.
2. Melt 1 tablespoon of the butter in a 10-inch cast-iron pan or a heavy stainless steel skillet with an ovenproof handle. Add the onion and sauté over medium heat for 5 minutes.
3. Stir in the white and shiitake mushrooms, garlic, ¾ teaspoon of the salt, and the herbs. Cook, stirring often, for about 15 minutes, or until the liquid the mushrooms have given off evaporates and the mushrooms are becoming golden brown around the edges.
4. While the mushrooms are cooking, place the eggs, milk, flour, remaining ½ teaspoon salt, and black pepper in a blender, and blend on high speed for a few seconds, until everything is just combined to make a smooth batter. (If you don’t have a blender, whisk all of this together in a medium-sized bowl. It