Ingredients: (for an 11-inch tart pan)
For the crust (crust recipe adapted from Laurence Salomon)
- 150 g white whole wheat pastry flour (all-purpose flour can be used instead and will likely require less water)
- 10 g poppy seeds
- 50 g old-fashioned oat flakes
- 33 g extra-virgin olive oil
- 4 pinches of salt
- 50 to 70 g of ice water (depending on the flour, you may need to use more or less, so go easy on the pouring)
For the filling
- Assorted beets (I forgot to weigh them but you won’t go wrong if you buy and steam four or five big ones. Leftover beets are delicious in soups or salads), scrubbed but unpeeled with roots and top stems (not leaves) uncut
- 150 g fresh goat cheese, crumbled
- 50 g ground hazelnuts (optional)
- 52 g whole milk
- 3 eggs
- French Dijon mustard (you don’t have to use fancy – I used Trader Joe’s – but you need to make sure it contains no sugar as its role is to counterbalance the sweetness of the beets)
- Hot pepper sauce to taste but preferably sparingly (I used Sriracha)
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Nutmeg to taste, freshly grated
Method:
- Steam the beets and let them cool down. Then peel and slice them
- Assemble the crust: pour flour, poppy seeds, oat flakes, salt and olive oil in the food processor with metal blade attached, pulse for 10 seconds (until oat flakes turn into coarse flour) and with the motor running, slowly pour in the water (just enough for the dough to form into a ball). Stop the moment it does. Wrap the dough in plastic and let it rest for 30 minutes (I put it in the refrigerator but I am not sure it was actually necessary as it may have made it harder to roll out)
- After 30 minutes, roll out the dough and place it in 11-inch ungreased tart pan. Place a piece of foil in the pan and fill it with pie weights (you don’t need to prick the dough). Bake in preheated 350°F/177°C oven for 15 minutes, remove the foil and pie weights and bake for another 5 minutes. Remove from oven and cool on a rack
- While beets and crust are cooling, whip the goat cheese with the milk and the eggs, adding salt, pepper and hot sauce to taste
- When crust is cool, paint bottom with Dijon mustard and sprinkle ground hazelnuts on top if desired (the hazelnuts are optional: they soak up some of the liquid, preventing the dough from getting soggy and they add a layer of taste which I like very much but it mostly came through when we ate the quiche cold the day after. Their presence was barely perceptible when the quiche was warm and freshly baked)
- Arrange the sliced beets in the crust and pour filling over them. Grate nutmeg over the quiche and bake in pre-heated 350°F/177°C oven for 30 minutes. Check doneness (the filling must be set) and if necessary, bake another 5 minutes until gently golden all over.
- Let cool somewhat before unmolding.
- Eat hot, warm or cold.