Blue cheese and broccoli quiche

Hi, I got this recipe from the Guardian magazines 'Feast', this is their weekly recipe mini book/magazine. It is Issue No.119 from Saturday 25th April 2020 and is on page 7. This delightful recipe is by Thomasina Miers. For the pastry in this dish, I made a recipe that I have used previously on this blog for Valentines day and in total, I only used half of the prepared dough for the quiche but with the leftovers, I re-made the puff pastry palmiers {from Valentines day} for my sister and dad as they don't like blue cheese. The quiche serves 6 people and has a wonderful blue cheese tang to it. Enjoy!!


Dietary Info:
 -Contains Dairy
 -No Nuts
 -Contains Gluten
 -Suitable for Vegetarian/Pescatarian
 -Unsuitable for Vegan




Ingredients:
-320g shop-brought puff pastry {I made my own, recipe below}
-200g broccoli, cut into small florets
-100ml whole milk
-250ml creme fraiche {I used a 300ml tub}
-3 eggs
-4-5 sprigs fresh thyme {I used about 1tbsp dried}
-salt & black pepper
-150g Gorgonzola Dolce, or any other sweet blue cheese {I am not sure if we used a 'sweet' blue cheese but I used Danish Blue}

Method:
1:Heat the oven to 200℃/180℃ fan/Gas 6/390℉.
2:On a floured surface, roll out the pastry so that it fits a 25-27cm quiche or tart dish. {Remember to grease your tart dish}Gently line the dish, pushing all pastry into the sides, and allowing any excess to hang over the edge. Prick all over with a fork, line with baking paper or foil, fill with baking beans or rice, and bake for 25mins {I used tinfoil and baking beans}. Once golden, remove the paper or foil and beans, and bake another 5mins. Set aside to cool.  
3:Meanwhile, bring a pan of salted water to a boil, blanch the broccoli for 2 mins, then drain and leave to steam dry.
4:Whisk the milk, creme fraiche and eggs vigorously, until frothy. Strip the thyme leaves from their branches, add to the eggs and season well.
5:Turn down the oven to 180℃/160℃ fan/355℉/gas 4.
6:Once the tart case is cool, trim any excess pastry then lay in the cooled broccoli in an even layer. Dot teaspoons of the Gorgonzola around the broccoli. Put the tart onto a tray to catch any over flow, then carefully pour over the egg mix so that it comes right up to the brim, adding a little more milk, if necessary {it wasn't for me, in fact we had too much egg mixture}. Bake in the centre of the oven for 35-40mins {Mine took 45-50mins}, until golden and just set in the middle. Leave to cool, {It does set a little more when cooling} then serve with a green salad.


 Puff Pastry Recipe:
I found this recipe after browsing for puff-pastry recipes as I decided that I wanted an extra challenge instead of using shop-brought frozen pastry. I used the BBC recipe as I have used their site a few times and trust it for good quality recipes, click the link below to go straight there. {This has just been copied and pasted from my blog of the palmiers}
Puff Pastry Recipe

Ingredients:

-225g/8oz plain flour, plus extra for rolling out
-½ tsp fine salt
-250g/9oz unsalted butter, cold but not rock hard (or you can use half butter,-half lard){I used 225g of unslated butter as that is how much I brought and a few grams here or there won't make too much a difference. Though, if you plan on doing drastic changes make sure to alter the other ingredients as well}
-150ml/¼ pint ice-cold water

Method:

1:Sift the flour and salt into a large mixing bowl, then put the bowl in the fridge for a few minutes to chill. (Keeping the flour and bowl cold will help you to get a better result later and create nice layers of pastry.)

2:Meanwhile, cut the butter into small cubes.

3:Using a round-bladed knife, stir the butter into the bowl until each piece is well coated with flour.

4:Pour in the water, then, working quickly, use the knife to bring everything together to a rough dough.{The butter won't be mixed in with the rest of it as you want streaks of butter running through your pastry so don't try to squish them into the mixture}

5:Gather the dough in the bowl using one hand, then turn it onto the work surface. Squash the dough into a fat, flat sausage, without kneading. Wrap in cling film then chill the dough in the fridge for 15 minutes.

6:Lightly flour the work surface and the pastry. Roll out the pastry in one direction until it’s about 1cm thick and three times as long as it is wide, or about 45x15cm/18x6in. Straighten up the sides with your hands now and again, and try to keep the top and bottom edges as square as possible.

7:Fold the bottom third of the pastry up, then the top third down, to make a block about 15x15cm/6x6in. It doesn’t matter if the pastry isn’t exactly the right size - the important thing is that the corners are nice and square.

8:Turn the dough so that its open edge is facing to the right, like a book. Press the edges of the pastry together with the rolling pin.

9:Roll out and fold the pastry again, repeating this four times in all to make a smooth dough, with buttery streaks here and there. If the pastry feels greasy at any point, or starts to spring back when as you roll, then cover and chill it for 10 minutes before continuing.

10:Chill the finished pastry for an hour, or ideally overnight, before using. {I chilled it overnight}

11:When you use the pastry roll it out to about the thickness of a £1 coin, and cook it at 200C/400F/Gas 6 for about 30 minutes. {In our recipe, it only needed about 20mins with how thin it was and the other ingredients but if you were using this for other recipes take this into account}