Toddy’s Fabulous Flan

Brown 'n' Bubbly Quiche

Women’s lingerie probably rarely figures largely in blog posts about quiche-making. But years and years ago, Jet Setter Jon and his friend Toddy the Underwear Lady were in the kitchen making Sunday lunch.

Seeing just how incompetent Jet Setter Jon and I were in the kitchen, Toddy took the helm. She said making a quiche was easier than everything we’d been led to believe. She turned out to be right.

Toddy was often right; hell, she made a career for herself in lady’s lingerie and that was before Victoria’s Secret’s rise. As I recall and I suppose I’m really no expert, women’s lingerie was a thing hidden away in the upper reaches of department stores. Since the decline of the department store and Victoria’s rise, well, it strikes me as quite an achievement. That’s gotta be a tough field to compete in, let alone excel in before these shops appeared on every corner, next to every Starbucks in America. I remember living in L.A. when there was only porno shops and Fredericks of Hollywood where women could buy lingerie that was anything but utilitarian.

I also recall that traveling with Toddy in France was quite a daily round of random shopping experiences: food, lingerie, ice cream stops. That’s because she only needed the slightest provocation to stop everything and upon seeing a lingerie shop in a small country town, disappear for an hour or so until she’d bought bags full of the most exotic things–for work! She’d miss entire afternoons at the shore with us digging deep into the knowledge banks of the ladies who worked inside these shops.

Lingerie Lady in Brittany

I think that’s what I most loved about her–her ability to get lost in the fine detail and be as happy as others who’d gone on holiday in order to get away from it all. Simplicity drove her days. And simplicity drove her cooking.

Basically, for those of us who are neither fine French chefs nor willing to fill our bodies with tons of cream and cheese, I bring you “Toddy’s Fabulous Flan.” This quiche is basically a tasty mix of spinach with a bit of onion, garlic, tarragon, mustard, and Gruyère. The process only really requires that you cook up everything before it gets dumped into the pie crust, and ensure that you have eliminated as much of the water from the spinach as possible.

I begin by chopping spinach, quick frying it to reduce all the water out of it, and then setting aside. Fry up half an onion and a small squirt of garlic clove and again, quickly fry in the pan. In a mixing bowl add the milk, grate enough Gruyère to your liking, a touch of salt and pepper, mustard and tarragon, and pop in the hot oven.

In 40 minutes at 425 degrees, adjusting the temp in case the oven runs hot, like mine does, you have a bubbly browned quiche that is the hit of the Sunday brunch set.

It is a little tricky to reheat at work the next day, however. I have tried six ways to Sunday to figure out an ideal reheating strategy for these little 1/8th cut pie slices, but to no avail. Best bet is to reheat for about 30 seconds on high, then let sit for about a minute, then another 30 seconds on high. Place on tin foil and put in a toaster oven on medium to dark and toast. That will bring a little firmness to the soft quiche slices that the microwave has made. Because this is a spinach quiche, I usually serve with some fragrant basmati and my all-purpose soy/mirin/sesame oil sauce (2 parts to 1 part to 1/2 part) and with a drizzle of that on the rice, you have a simple, but fragrant lunch.

Toddy’s Fabulous Flan

Ingredients

2/3 c milk

3 medium eggs, beaten

1/3 c Gruyère cheese, grated

1/2 medium yellow onion, finely diced

1 small garlic clove, minced

1 t dry tarragon

1 t dry mustard or about 1/2 t Dijon prepared mustard

12 oz. baby leaf spinach, chopped well

1 pie crust

salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

Assemble the cheese, tarragon, mustard, beaten eggs, and milk with salt and pepper in a mixing bowl. Fry the chopped spinach in a tiny bit of oil and a little salt in a non-stick pan until all the water cooks off. Remove the spinach, throw the onion in the pan and brown, in the last two minutes of browning, add the garlic. Mix in with the spinach, set aside to cool.

When cool, add into the egg, cheese, and milk mixture and then pour into the frozen pie crust. Pop in the preheated 425 degree oven. I have often found myself putting it in at 425 for about 5-7 minutes, and then turning it down to 350 for about 40 minutes. Then if the crust isn’t sufficiently browned, I turn it back up to 425 until the crust looks the way I most want it. Again, depending on the oven, I’ll turn off the heat and let it sit in the warm oven after I open the door for about 2 minutes or so.

Et voila! perfect “quiche” every time. Although, since it’s not really a creme-filled heart-clogger quiche, it’s really Toddy’s Fabulous Flan! Enjoy and share with friends. Bring to a brunch and impress your friends.

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