Say Goodbye and Hello

The best way to bid farewell is with an afternoon of cooking, no doubt culminating in 20 minutes of gluttonous eating. Trust me. And the best way to cook is with copious amounts of fat, preferably butter. Ask any chef and they'll tell you. If they don't, they're flat out lying.

Tonight's menu is a family fave: quiche Lorraine (Julia's recipe - though I make the crust recipe from The Joy of Cooking), asparagus with wild mushroom and brie sauce and, for dessert, apple pear crumble (with pistachios and almonds). I can't be sure there won't be cream on top of the crumble.

And for some food porn:

Prebaked Crust - Recipe in The Joy of Cooking. You've got to blind bake it before adding the quiche custard...

Seriously, is there anything better than bacon? Except lardons??

You line the blind-baked crust with lardons, just before adding the custard mixture (see photo below)...

This custard is a simple mixture of eggs, cream, salt and pepper. Takes 3 minutes to make.

And here's what it comes to, in the end:

We like a lot of space between the top of the deep-dish pan and the custard. Makes for more crunchy crust!

Seriously, people, if you are afraid for your arteries, do not make this meal. I have actually modified the menu items to remove some of the fat. For example, I cannot conscion adding 2 tbsp butter to the top of a quiche, the ingredients of which are these: lard, flour, butter (in the crust), lardons, 1 cup of heavy cream, eggs, salt and pepper. A girl needs to draw the line somewhere. I use whole milk, not cream, when making my mushroom cheese sauce.

But I do NOT skimp on the butter in the crumble:

See those little dots of apple/pear coloured something? Yeah, that's butter. And, btw, that's the secret to your perfect crumble. When it mixes with the collapsed fruit, vanilla extract, pinch of sugar, lemon and corn starch, it creates a perfect confit.

Add some hand-crushed pistachios, almonds, more butter, flour and sugar, and you've got yourself an awesome, crunchy topping:

Natch, this is pre-baking

And this just came out of the oven (which is why I've updated the post):

You'll have to trust me when I tell you that this is much browner than the pre-baked version and bubbling nicely.

You can see why we need to add some asparagus to the mix.

(I cannot be sure that there won't be a good bottle of wine for pairing.)

Bye-bye 2015. You've been all kinds of things. But I'll put my money on the future.