A Couple o’ Quiche
Take your pick: A Quiche Lorraine with or without crust; one of them is the original Houston's Restaurant Recipe!
Crustless Quiche
Maybe you'll remember a time back in the late 1970s and early '80s when quiche was all the rage. Restaurants of any caliber had their version of Quiche Lorraine on the menu and some restaurants wholly revolved around this dish, offering as many ingredient options as a pizza joint had toppings.
Real Men Really Do Eat Quiche
Quiche has been around at least since the 18th Century when it was named after the Lorraine region of France where household staples of cream, eggs and cheese were combined in a tart shell to create this light, airy, savory dish. The quiche craze culminated in 1982 with a book that practically ended it, Real Men Don't Eat Quiche, a tongue-in-cheek exposé about the evolving definition of masculinity. Quiche went out of vogue shortly thereafter for a thirty-five year hiatus.
But now, it seems, quiche is making a comeback and My Number On Fan gets all of my accolades and recognition for finding and expertly preparing a crustless version on her very first attempt. Found originally on kalynskitchen website, several modifications were made, and we were both impressed with how easily this came together. We use a round 10-inch by 2-inch quiche baking dish, but any baking dish will do as long as the batter, when poured, is no more that about 1-1/2” thick.
Houston’s Restaurant Quiche
Back in the late 1970s, My Number One Fan worked at the very first Houston's Restaurant, which opened in Nashville, Tennessee. By the late 1990s, there were over thirty Houston's locations coast-to-coast and they never wavered from their commitment to quality food in a vibrant, trendy but comfortable atmosphere. Since 2009, however, the parent company of the Houston's brand, Hillstone Restaurant Group has been slowly phasing it out by either re-branding or outright closing some locations, and today, there are only eleven or so Houston's left.
My Number One Fan managed to acquire a couple of recipes from the original Houston's menu, including an adapted Kitchen Tapestry recipe for Canadian Beer Cheese Soup and this one for a genuine Quiche Lorraine. I also was able to reverse-engineer a delightful aioli that Houston's created and served with a smoked salmon appetizer, adapted in the Kitchen Tapestry recipe for Houston’s Smoked Salmon Appetizer. Since its posting in 2012, that recipe was by far the most popular one downloaded and commented on in the original 2009 version of Kitchen Tapestry blog hosted by BlogSpot. Kitchen Tapestry has since migrated to the Squarespace platform in 2024 and older comments were deleted.
This quiche recipe follows the more classic French culinary creation that evolved over time in the Alsace-Lorraine region between the 12th and 20th Centuries, but was commonly served on bread dough. The flaky pie dough pastry idea didn't come about until post WWII in the 1950s. The classic Quiche Lorraine recipe features flavors of Gruyere cheese, onion, lardons (fatty bacon), and nutmeg, and has flaky pastry dough on both the top and bottom of the pie. My Number One Fan elected to maintain the original Houston's adaptation, which does not cover the Quiche with a top layer of flaky dough. She used the kind of pie shell you buy frozen, ready-to-bake in an aluminum pie tin.
A Couple o' Quiche
Ingredients
- 8 slices of regular bacon (about 8 oz), cut into lardons and fried crispy
- 7 extra large eggs
- 3/4 cup heavy or whipping cream
- 1- 1/2 cups grated 50/50 Swiss and Gruyère cheese (like, Private Selection Alpine Blend)
- 1/2 cup Mozzarella or Monterrey Jack cheese, shredded (like, Sargento or Kraft)
- 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, shredded (not the Kraft green can)
- 1/4 cup green onions, finely chopped
- 1/2 tsp Mrs. Dash Original Seasoning
- 1/8 tsp Morton's Nature's Seasoning Blend
- pinch of white pepper
- pinch of ground nutmeg
- fresh snipped chives for garnish
- non-stick cooking spray (like, Butter-Favored Pam)
- 1 9" deep-dish pie shell, thawed (like, Pillsbury or Mrs. Smith)
- 8 slices of regular bacon (about 8 oz), cut into lardons and fried crispy
- 2 eggs, plus 2 egg yolks
- 1- 1/2 cups heavy cream
- 1/4 tsp fine sea salt
- 1/8 tsp white pepper
- 1/8 tsp nutmeg
- 1- 1/4 cups Gruyère cheese, shredded, or use grated 50/50 Swiss and Gruyère cheese (like, Private Selection Alpine Blend)
- 4-5 green onions, finely minced (about /12 cup)
- Fresh snipped chives for garnish
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350°F degrees. Ensure a rack is in the top 1/3 of the oven.
- Beat the eggs in a mixing bowl using a whisk until homogenized,
- Add the cream, white pepper, nutmeg, Mrs. Dash and the Nature's Seasoning's Blend, and whisk until all is well combined.
- Liberally spray a round baking dish with the non-stick spray.
- Layer the chopped bacon on the bottom of the dish, followed by the grated cheeses and green onions.
- Pour the eggs and cream mixture into the baking dish and then shake the dish or use a fork to ensure all the ingredients are more or less evenly distributed throughout.
- Bake in the oven for 40 minutes.
- Start keeping an eye on the quiche at 35 minutes, but it should be done when it has expanded and beginning to brown on top, and when nothing in the center of the dish moves when you shake it. If the center jiggles a bit when you shake the baking dish, that means the eggs have not cooked all the way through.
- Let the quiche cool about 5 minutes before cutting it into to slices. It will deflate a little, and that's normal.
- Garnish with the chives before serving.
- Pre-heat oven to 325°F.
- Cut an "X" in the crust's center, then prick the crust throughout with the point of a dinner fork. Bake the shell at 325°F for 5 minutes or until it loses its waxy appearance.
- Mix the eggs and cream in a mixing bowl with a whisk until well blended.
- Stir in the salt, pepper and nutmeg and mix well to combine.
- Layer the bacon, onions and cheese (in that order) in the pie shell.
- Pour the egg and cream mixture into the shell.
- Bake the quiche for 1 hour or until a knife inserted into its center comes out clean.
- Allow to cool for 10 minutes before slicing.
Notes
For the bacon in each recipe above, instead of 8 regular slices of bacon (about 8 oz), you can substitute:
- 12 slices of microwavable bacon (like, Boar's Head or Hormel Black Label)
- 1 3-1/2 oz package pre-cooked chopped bacon bits (like Hormel or Oscar Mayer)
In high altitudes (above 5,000 feet):
- For Crustless Quiche Lorraine: Heat the oven to 365°F and add 5-7 minutes to the baking time.
- For Houston's Quiche Lorraine: Heat the oven to 335°F and add 10-15 minutes to the baking time.
