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Suckling Pig Roast Deux

By rcoomber
August 2, 2012 //
0

Last year Wif and I headed to my parents’ Catskill Mountains house in Andes, NY.  It was documented in excruciating detail in six posts: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, and Part VI. We bought a 19 pound suckling pig, and roasted it on a spit. Results were mixed, and the cooking was harrowing.

This year we decided to roast another, smaller suckling pig — just 12.5 pounds.  To make things simpler, we eliminated the spit and decided to use a simple camping grill I found on Amazon for $20.

With the theme of keeping things simple, I didn’t brine the pig either.  I just liberally salted it inside and out.  Then I stuffed the body cavity with lemons and herbs, and added a loaf of bread to hold the aromatics in.

We started the fire an hour before we put the pig on, using a mix of wood and coal to control the heat and the flames.

In a brilliant stroke, one of my friends suggested we move the pit to the front yard, with the spectacular views, instead of the swampy backyard.

Good call.  It was a lot more pleasant to have it out front.

To make sure the pig wouldn’t stick to the grill, we wiped a vegetable oil soaked rag over the grill, let the oil burn off for a few seconds, and repeated that twice more.  It makes just about any grill non-stick (thanks America’s Test Kitchen!).  The fire was hot at first, so we got a nice sear after just 20 minutes or so.

We kinda got fearful then, so we cooled it down some.  So we ended up cooking it thoroughly, but not to the point of lovely meltiness that I was looking for.  There’s always next year.

It was gorgeous.

All butchered up, we had plenty of food for the nine adults and five little people, along with a side of potato salad, asparagus, other veggies, and so, so much beer.

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Categories Recipes

Bouillabaisse

By rcoomber
April 19, 2012 //
1

Bouillabaisse is one of those amazing recipes with humble origins.  Fishermen in France would put together whatever they had in a pot, and then serve it.  However, if you don’t happen to be a French fisherman who lives by the sea, you are less likely to have the ingredients readily available to make a spectacular bouillabaisse.  You’ll have to spend some time, and some money, putting it together.  It has four main components:  stock, rouille, croutons, and a variety of fishes.

Bouillabaisses Broth (i.e. Fish Stock, since this is made with bones, so it’s really stock, not broth)

All great bouillabaisses start with a great fish stock.  For great fish stock, you need to start with a fish carcass.  And yes, that includes the head.

Making stock is annoying — especially draining the liquid from the solids.  That’s why it’d be so much better to be a French fisherman, who probably has some sort of cauldron with a wood fire underneath and is a constant source of fresh stock.

Not a stock photo. This is actually what I used for the fish stock. Also didn't mean to make a pun with "stock photo."

I left the stock in the fridge overnight and heated it up the next day.  The fish bones and head made the mixture very gelatinous, which was pretty cool, or creepy, depending on your perspective.

Gelatinous means more flavours

  • 2 lbs of fish carcass (I asked my fishmonger, and he gave me a lovely red snapper, head on)
  • Lobster shells, if available
  • Shrimp shells, if available
  • 2 celery stems
  • 3 cups of fronds (the leafy top of fennel that looks kinda like dill)
  • Sprigs of thyme (plus some extra for when you put the soup together)
  • Parsley Stems (save the leaves for when you put the soup together)
  • 3 cloves of garlic
  • 3 tablespoons of Olive Oil
  • 6 cups of water (or enough to cover your solid stock items)
  • 2 cups of white wine
Note — the ingredients for your stock can, and should, adjust according to what’s available and looks delicious.  Above is merely what we used.

Heat a stock pot.  Add olive oil.  Throw in all the ingredients.  Let the ingredients saute for a minute, and stir.  You don’t want anything to burn.  After 7-10 minutes, stirring every minute or so, add your wine and water.  Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer.  Let simmer for a half hour.  Separate the liquids from the solids.

Rouille

Rouille is a weird addition to boillabaisse.  Luckily it’s not that hard to make.  Just combine:

  • a cup or so of bread crumbs with
  • a chopped red pepper,
  • a clove of garlic,
  • 2 tablespoons of olive oil, and
  • enough fish stock to blend it smooth.
  • Add salt and pepper to taste.

Put ingredients in a blender, and add fish stock till the mixture has the consistency of cake frosting.

Croutons

Croutons are pretty easy also, and pretty damned delicious.

  • 20-30 slices of bread, about 1 1/2 inches thick
  • 3 tablespoons of olive oil
  • 3 cloves of garlic

Rub about 20 slices of bread with sliced garlic.  Add a little olive oil to each slice, and season them with some salt and pepper.

Place the slice in a 350 degree oven for 5-10 minutes, and flip them when they start to brown.  When they brown on the other side, they’re done.

Fishes et al.

  • Fish Stock (see above)
  • Croutons (see above)
  • Rouille (see above)
  • 2 dozen littleneck clams
  • 1 1/2 pounds of mussels
  • 2 pounds of white fish (we used cod), cut in 1 inch chunks
  • Juice from one orange
  • Zest from one orange
  • Juice from one medium lemon
  • Zest from one lemon
  • 1/2 pound of tomatoes, chopped
  • 1 1/2 pounds of medium shrimp, shelled and cleaned
  • 1/2 cup of parsley leaves, chopped at the last second
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • The leaves from a few sprigs of thyme, chopped at the last second
Note again, the fish and herbs you add to the soup is completely subject to what looks good at the market that day.  Ask your fish monger what’s good.

Heat enough stock to fill 8-10 bowls of soup about halfway.  Bring to a simmer.  Add the tomatoes, orange juice, orange zest, lemon juice, and lemon zest.  Add the white fish and cook for 4 minutes.  Add the rest of the fish till the mussels and clams open.  Discard unopened clams and mussels.  Test for salt and pepper.  Adjust accordingly.  Add the soup with the fish et al. to a bowl.

Add the Rouille in the middle of each bowl, and provide the leftover on the side.  Place a couple of the croutons on the side of the bowl.

Serves 8-10.

Enjoy!

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Categories Recipes, Uncategorized

Mounting a Flat Screen TV to a Brick Wall

By rcoomber
March 27, 2012 //
3

You know what’s terrifying?  Risking large sums of money on your own ability to attach a very heavy thing to a very hard brick wall.  In this case, it was a 46″ television I have been waiting for years to purchase.

What you’ll need:

  • A Rosary
  • Mounting Bracket
  • Hammer Drill (plug-in preferable)
  • 5/8″ Inch Masonry Bit
  • 4 2″ long, 5/8″ diameter two-piece masonry lead sleeves
  • 4 3″ long lag screws to fit the sleeves
  • 4 washers to fit the lag screws
  • Socket and Ratchet Set (depending on how you screw in your lag screws)
  • 2 Levels – one small (12″) and one large (3′)
  • Needlenose pliers
  • Shop Vac

First, be sure to research your mount thoroughly.   You want it to be flexible enough to adjust to different views, but first and foremost you want it to be solid.  This bracket I found on Amazon was my choice, and it’s worked great.  

Be sure whatever bracket you chose fits your specific television, and make sure it can work with your wall.  In my case I was attaching to a wall made of brick, then covered in plaster, then covered in adobe.  So let’s just call it “brick.”

In order to mount the bracket to the brick wall, I first figured out where on the wall I wanted the television.  Since the wall is made of brick, I could put it pretty much wherever I wanted.  If I were screwing into a stud wall, I would be more limited, because I would have to drill directly into the studs since drywall alone is not strong enough to hold a large tv.

I found the center of where the television would go, and marked that with a “t.”  I placed the bracket lining the “t” up in its center, and used a small level on the bracket to make sure it was straight.  Wif marked where the holes needed to be with a pencil while I held the bracket straight and in place.

Then I used a plug-in hammer drill with a 5/8 inch masonry bit to make the four holes.

Another shot for scale:

I drilled the holes just deep enough so I could fit the 1″ long, 1/2″ diameter masonry lead sleeves into the holes so they sat completely inside the hole, but not much further.  If they stick out at all, they will remove themselves as you insert the lag screws.

On the left is the lead sleeve, and on the right is the lag screw and the washer.

When you screw the lag into the sleeve, the lead anchor expands.  Since lead is a very soft metal, it shapes itself to whatever hole you put it into, creating a very secure hold.

Be sure to stick the screw in the correct end of the sleeve.  I learned this one the hard way, both in construction and in love.  Zing!

Place the sleeve in the hole with the more closed side facing into the wall, and the more open side facing out.  That way, the sleeve will expand more in the deeper part of the hole, making it less likely that it can slip out.

More closed side (facing into the wall):

More open side (facing out):

Slide the anchors into the holes, making sure the holes are slightly deeper than the anchors.  If the anchors separate or won’t go in all the way (they are two separable pieces) then take them out with a pair of needle-nose pliers and try again.  You may have to drill the hole a little deeper or clean out the edges if the anchor doesn’t fit.

Attach the part of the bracket that attaches to the tv, attach the part of the bracket that attaches to the wall with the lag screws and washers, but don’t tighten the screws too much.  Then hang the tv on the bracket.  Clean up the mess with a shop-vac.

Finally, watch your team win the Supebowl with your family.

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Categories Renovations

Welcome Cannibals!

By rcoomber
August 5, 2011 //
0

I really didn’t expect this, but we have a new readership — eaters of human flesh! Previously our site got misdirected hits from a few people who were searching for two men and a woman doing a collective special cuddle.  Some refer to this as “putting a woman on a spit,” which were the search terms used to find our site.  We can see how people find our site via our internal data.  Spooky!  The group special cuddle that these pervs were searching for is also known as an ”Eiffel tower,” or “finger cuffs.”  I just increased our page views for the day ten fold.  Thanks pervs!  The search for “putting a woman on a spit” turned up our site due to my several posts — Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, and Part VI – about spit roasting a suckling pig.

I have no idea why four people  actually clicked through if they were looking for hot man on man on woman action.  It must have been clear from the title of the posts that the subject matter was not what they were looking for.  Maybe they were hungry and sexually excited?  Maybe they like pigs inappropriately?  Who am I to judge?  Or even ask a series of rhetorical questions?

Which brings us to our latest misdirected reader, who apparently found our site through a search for “how to spit roast human.”

Uh, welcome?  Oddly, I think our site is more appropriate for someone trying to figure out how to spit roast a human than someone looking for the devil’s threesome.  Just as long as the cannibal increases the amount of all the ingredients to account for a full sized human.

Enjoy your soylent green!

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Categories Uncategorized

Part VI — Spit Roasting a Suckling Pig Post-Mortem

By rcoomber
July 21, 2011 //
7

This is the last in a series of posts.  It was preceded by Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, and Part V.

What did we learn from spit roasting our first suckling pig?

  1. Buy a quality spit and motor.  Make sure that the spit you buy can handle twice the weight of the pig you purchase.  If your pig weighs 20 pounds, your spit should be able to handle at least 4o pounds.  Or else it will fail.
  2. Order your pig early.  It is not easy to find a suckling pig these days.  Even if you find a consistent purveyor of suckling pigs, they can often take weeks to deliver.  Order at least a month in advance.
  3. Brine your pig.   I found it gave the pig excellent flavor, and helped to season the entirety of the pig — especially the thicker pieces of meat, and those that were hard to get to, or covered in thick skin, like the ribs.   Brine it the night before.
  4. Build a good fire with solid coals.  Give yourself plenty of time –maybe 2 hours — just to build your fire.  You want to have two sections:  a section that burns hot and created coals and flames, and section with just coals over which you cook the pig at about 250-275.
  5. Stuff your pig with aromatics, hold the stuffing in with bread, and tie it with butcher’s twine soaked in water.  Choose a theme (I went with French country) and add aromatic herbs, vegetables, and maybe some citrus or other acidic item so that the flavors perforate all the meat (I ended up using thyme, sage, lavender, lemon, and garlic, though I forgot the lavender and garlic).  Also, buy a loaf of bread to stuff in last to hold everything else in.  The bread will also toast nicely, and absorb delicious juices.
  6. Center the weight of your pig on the spit.  This may take a few tries, but make sure you get that sucker centered, or it will rotate too fast and too slow, alternately.  Or you get a robust spit motor, and it won’t care (See #1).
  7. Don’t panic.  In all likelihood, something will go wrong.  Don’t panic.  Remember, even if you drop it in the fire (which we did) you don’t eat the skin anyway.  Plus, if everything goes wrong, you can always  stick the sucker in the oven.  If it won’t fit, cut it up and stick it in the oven.
  8. Be patient.  This will take a while (at least 5 hours) so give yourself plenty of time.  I would even suggest cooking it to 200 degrees so it’s fall off the bone, or to 150 so that it’s at medium (the temperature of the meat will raise an additional 10 degrees once you remove it from the fire, so it will end up at 160.  We cooked it to 175, as some recipes suggested.  This left the meat in the after-medium zone where it is tough, not as flavorful, and not cooked enough to be fall-off -bone tender.
Keep the dogs away from the ingredients.
Ingredients:
  1. A suckling pig, 10-20 pounds
  2. A quality spit with a good, plug-in motor
  3. Plenty of butchers twine, soaked in water
  4. 20-80 pounds of coals — I would buy at least 60 to be safe, but you can also use wood
  5. Oven thermometer
  6. Small boning knife to butcher the pig
  7. Quality rubber gloves to remove the pig from the spit
  8. Large cutting board
  9. Lots o’ salt
  10. Fresh herbs
  11. Appropriate veggies
  12. Citrus or other fruit
  13. Stuff for a sauce
Ultimately, it’s a wonderful male-bonding experience, even if you completely alienate your wives.
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Categories Sustenance

Spit Roasting a Suckling Pig V — Butchering and Serving

By rcoomber
July 14, 2011 //
8

This post was one in a series.  The other parts are available here:   Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, and Part VI.

Finally, after the pig had been purchased, transported, brined, had a fire built for it, stuffed, mounted, cooked, nearly ruined, cooked, and removed from the fire.  What next?  Let’s take the meat of the bones.  A lot of the butchering can be done by hand.  First, peel off the thick skin.

The body will look something like this:

Then use a knife with a small blade to cut the meat off of the bones.   I was a little disappointed in the end product.  I expected the meat to be more consistent since the pig was so young and had only drank milk.  Instead the different cuts of meats like the pork belly (often smoked and cured and used as bacon) was different from the pork shoulder, was different from the loin, which was different from the tenderloin, which was different from the ribs, etc.   The rear legs were also different from the rest of the pig.  In part because they did not spend as much time on the spit, but I think that a good part of the diffence was due to the different cuts of meat.

Next time I think I will cook the pig longer, letting it get to around 200 degrees instead of just 175.  That will get all the meat consistent, and fall-off-the-bone tender.  The risk will be that it will literally fall of the bone and into the fire.  Maybe we’ll get it to 175 over the spit, and finish it in the oven.  We’ll see.

Also, a good strategy for the vulchers who will inevitably swarm your pig carcass while your butchering it:  give them some of the bones you’ve already taken the meat off of, and let them pick off of that.  It works for dogs, and it works for grabby hungry people.

Ultimately the pile o’ meat looked like this:

The full dinner, with some roasted vegetables:

I also made a sauce to go with the pork.  Ingredients for serving probably 20 (i.e. 8 more people than we had) include:

  • 1 stick of butter (1/2 cup) — or substitute 1/2 cup of oil (preferably Extra Virgin Olive Oil, if it’s on hand)
  • 1/2 cup of flour
  • 1 cup of milk
  • 1 cup of white wine
  • Several sprigs of thyme
  • 1/4 cup of dijon mustard
  • Salt and pepper to taste

I started with a bechamel, which is a combination of a rue and milk.  Take a half cup of butter (1 stick) and a half a cup of flour, and stir them together with a wire wisk over medium low heat.  You can substitute oil if you don’t have butter (which is what we had to do for our sauce).  When the flour’s rawness is cooked out, and the rue starts to get a little color (after 3-5 minutes) slowly add a cup of milk in a thin stream, allowing the sauce to become a thick white mixture, with the consistency of frosting.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  I added a 1/4 cup of dijon mustard,  a cup of white wine, and the leftover juice from the lemons that were in the cavity of the pig.  A few sprigs of thyme went in as well.  I let that cook together on medium for 10-15 minutes, to let the flavors marry, stirring consistently.  Add some more salt and pepper to taste.  It looked like this while it was cooking:

You can see the thyme in there.  I removed it before serving, and also tested to see that the salt and pepper were good.  There was way too much for the 12 people we were serving, but I thought better to have too much than too little.

The pig was a hit, but there was plenty of room for improvement.  Post VI will be a post-mortem debriefing, as well as a consolidated explanation on how to roast a suckling pig and succeed brilliantly.

Next time…

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Categories Sustenance, Uncategorized

Part IV Spit Roasting a Suckling Pig — What To Do When Your Motor Fails

By rcoomber
July 12, 2011 //
9

This post was one in a series.  The other parts are available here:   Part I, Part II, Part III, Part V, and Part VI. When the motor failed on our sad little spit, we had to make a decision — get the motor working again somehow and re-spit the pig; finish roasting it in the oven; or turn the spit by hand. First we tried to get the motor working.  To do that, we determined that we had to lighten its load.  So I cut off our pig’s legs, and stuck them in the oven at 275, the same approximate temperature we were roasting it over the fire.With the lightened load, the motor worked for another five minutes before failing again. Next we tried to figure out how to turn it by hand.  We (I write “we,” but I had all but abandoned the effort at this point, suggesting we just put the whole thing in the oven; I also lamely claimed that I was employing an effective management technique by telling everyone else that what they were doing was stupid and wouldn’t work, thereby inspiring them to succeed) found a piece of metal that fit over the end of the spit such that we were able to turn the spit by hand.  We figured that if we allowed the pig to sit in one position for just 5 minutes or so, then spun it slightly to a section that was not well crisped yet, we could imitate the motor’s action, granted in a much slower fashion. We also probably lost a little juice by turning it this way as opposed to spinning it continuously with a motor.  Continuous spinning allows rendered fat to drip back onto other parts of the pig as it spins, thereby basting the meat in its own juices.  Without constant motion, the drippings were lost to the fire.  But this was a good alternative, given the circumstances. Overall, this new strategy worked.  Sorta.  We did leave it in certain positions for too long, thereby scorching a lot of the pig.  But only the thick skin of the pig got burnt, not the delicious flesh, so it wasn’t too big a deal.  We would not have crackling, or a cooked football, but not a huge loss. Next problem:  it started to rain.  Our simple solution was to cover it with a piece of plywood from the garage. This portion was relatively boring, and involved a lot of simply watching the pig, making sure it wouldn’t burn.  Most got bored, and left. About 6 hours from when we started, temperatures taken from the middle of the thickest parts of the pig (175 degrees) indicated that it was done.  First tastes were had.  Hooves were especially popular for nibbling, as Andy makes clear below. We then carefully removed the pig and spit from the supports onto a cutting board, and acted triumphant! In fact, we were still pretty concerned that the sucker would roll off the board. ‘Cept Andy.  He was still flashing the number 1. Next step:  butchering and serving your spit-roasted pig.

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Categories Sustenance, Uncategorized

Roasting a Suckling Pig Part III — Stuffing, Tying Up, and Mounting Your Pig

By rcoomber
July 8, 2011 //
10

This post was one in a series.  The other parts are available here:   Part I, Part II, Part IV, Part V, and Part VI.

This is the part of a pig roast that is most ripe for sexual puns.  But I will take great pains to avoid them.  That’s probably a lie, but it felt right to say.

I chose to go a French countryside kinda route with my stuffing recipe (instead of perhaps a Cuban version, which might have included oranges and cilantro or something).  I removed the pig from the brine, and let it drip dry a little.

I quartered 5 lemons (3 of which I had zested for the brine); meant to halve a couple heads of garlic (but I forgot); took a couple large bunches of thyme, and a solid amount of sage, and stuck that all in the cavity of the pig (I also meant to add lavender, but couldn’t find any and was super busy).    Don’t be afraid to really get in there.

Be sure to block any muppet-like mongrels, as they will be happy to eat your pig raw.

Problem solved!

I added a loaf of french bread last, which helped to hold in the rest of the ingredients.

The plan was to heat up the lemons, which would turn their juices into delicious steam which would pick up the flavor of the other ingredients and permeate   the meat,  imparting all the ingredients’ flavors throughout.

At this point I also retied the pig.  The butcher tied it pretty well, but he gave me some extra string to make sure everything held together tightly.  I pulled the string around wherever I thought we needed it, had my friend hold the overhand knot with his finger, and finished tying the square knots to finish off the trussing.

Next, we had to mount the sucker.  I wasn’t too involved with this part of the process.  The key is to get the pig balanced, which is really tricky, since a pig is not meant to be balanced by a pole stuck through its butt and out its mouth.  Nothing is meant to be balanced that way.

Our first try forced the pig’s head into an awkward position, but made for a good picture.

We respat (?) it, in part using a hatchet to hammer the spit forks into some bone so they would grip the pig well enough to spin it.

On the second attempt the head looked more comfortable, and the pig seemed better balanced.

However, once we actually started turning the spit, the motor would struggle to turn it at points, and the pig would accelerate too much at other points in its spin cycle.  Also, the spit we bought was bowing slightly, putting further strain on the motor.

The spit we bought, which was run on only a D battery,  was simply not powerful enough to turn the pig.  We needed a plug in spit.  Next time, we’d get something heavy duty and serious, like this, or this.  Our dinky $50 version just wouldn’t cut it for 20 pounds of meat.

Then we hit a double snagzaster.  Though the spit ran for about half an hour, we needed it to run for about 6-8 hours total.  At the same time that the motor was about to give out, some genius decided to baste the pig with way too much bacon fat.  Alright, it was me.  The excess bacon fat caused a flare up, which burned the butcher’s twine, which released half the stuffing into the fire below.

Also, the motor stopped working completely.  We took the pig off the spit and decided to regroup.  We were not going to let this relatively large snagzaster deter us from roasting this pig outdoors on a spit over a fire!

Well, at least my friends weren’t.  I wanted to just put it in the oven, but the rest of the men disagreed.  So we had to find a solution.

Up next, perseverance…

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Categories Sustenance

Spit Roasting a Pig II — To Build a Fire

By rcoomber
July 7, 2011 //
9

This post was one in a series.  The other parts are available here:   Part I, Part III, Part IV, Part V, and Part VI.

To build a fire for a pig roast, you’ll need to start a couple hours in advance of when you plan to begin to roast the pig.  You could go three ways with this portion:  build a fire out of purely coal-coals; build a fire from wood; or a combination thereof.  We decided to do a combination.

You’ll need a large, flat, dry, and not too windy place to build your fire.  Our planned location had a couple inches of water in it, so I laid down a bunch of flat rocks, so we could build the fire on top of them.  The idea is to get the fire burning till all you’re left with is coals.  If you have actual flames , the flames will burn your pig, and that’s bad.  Since you’re trying to cook through a foot or so of meat, low heat and slow cooking — “low and slow” — are the words of the game.

Here’s how our pit looked:

Then we made a little teepee with dry, thin kindling.  We then filled the middle of the teepee with crumpled newspaper and cardboard.

1 Match Was All It Took -- Patented Mr. Janes/Mr. Schreiber Cub Scout Technique

Then we hit our first snag/disaster.  It was a snag-zaster.  The rocks I used to raise the pit above the water were, in fact, sandstone, which explode when heated.

Whoops!  I really should have known, especially since one of my friends asked, “Hey Bob, those aren’t exploding rocks that you put under there, are they?”

“Nope,” I answered confidently, before unconfidently adding, “Uh, yeah, no.  I don’t think so. . . “

Then the rocks started exploding.  I didn’t think it was too bad at first.  After eight or nine exploded sending hot rock-shrapnel through the yard, a thorough dousing was in order . . .
then some rock removal . . .

then tossing the bad rocks . . .

and then we could start over.  Instead of our exploding hot stone base, we decided to go with the safer, smarter log base for attempt 2.

Another teepee, another 1 match wonder, and we were restarted.

Eventually, we figured that we would build the larger, flaming fire on one side of the pit, and then place the pig across the other side of the pit.  When the coal-coals and wood-coals stopped flaming, we’d rake them to the pig-side of the pit.  We placed an oven thermometer alongside the pig, so we knew when the fire got too hot or too cold (we sought to roast it at about 275F).

And the fire was ready!  Next step, stuffing the pig!  Get ready buddy.

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Categories Sustenance, Uncategorized

Weekday Entertaining – Green Onion and Goat Cheese Quiche

By symbolandsubstance
February 11, 2011 //
0

A commenter asked for the recipes for the weekday entertaining menu. I had a couple posted, but not all. So enjoy cooking!

Green Onion and Goat Cheese Quiche

Ingredients

1 pie crust (one suggestion is here)

1/4 cup or so goat cheese, crumbled

1 bunch green onions, white and some green parts chopped

N.B. My original recipe called for leeks – use two, white parts and light green parts, if you can find them! Be sure to wash very well since leeks are sandy. You can substitute other onion type things in here, like shallots or even red onion, depending on what you have on hand.

3/4 cup whole milk

3/4 cup heavy cream

3 large eggs

N.B. Again a deviation from the original recipe – which BTW comes from The New Best Recipe – they call for two eggs and two egg yolks. I find that wasteful, so I just used three eggs. I think it turned out quite nicely so I see no need to go the egg yolk route.

Salt and pepper to taste – if you want to be fancy and all, use white pepper. I do not care.

Directions

1. Pre-heat the oven to 375. Roll out your pie crust, letting it rest at least 30 minutes after making it. Put it in a pie dish and place in the oven to pre-bake for about 30 minutes until it becomes brown. I recommend using beans to weigh down the bottom so it doesn’t puff up too much. I did not, because I did not want to waste beans.

2. While the crust is pre-cooking, saute the green onions and/or leeks. Set them aside. Mix together the cream, milk, and eggs with a whisk, mixing evenly. The mixture should be a butter color. Add about a teaspoon of salt and pepper, or more or less depending on your taste.

3. Remove the pie crust, and allow to cool. Keep the oven on 375.

4. Once pie crust has cooled sufficiently – doesn’t have to be cold, just a cooling period of 15 minutes or so – distribute the goat cheese and green onions evenly on the bottom of the pie crust. Pour over the egg/milk/cream mixture. Place in oven and cook for about 35 minutes, until the a knife placed one inch from the side comes out clean and the center looks like gelatin.

Highly recommended to serve this for an entertaining menu after Dandelion and Garlic Pasta, and with Radicchio as a side dish.

Printer-Friendly Recipe:  Green Onion and Goat Cheese Quiche

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