Quiche Lorraine

What my partner, Jane and I made is the quiche Lorraine, a warm savoury dish that can also be served cold, however warm is ideal. Usually served in a crust, filled with cream, cheese, onions and bacon. Normally it has lardon, cubes of pork fats, but we chose bacon as it is more convenient and accessible ingredient. Quiche lorraine named for the Lorraine region of France, is a popular variant that was originally an open pie with a filling of custards with lardons. There are many variants of quiche, including a wide variety of ingredients. Variants may be named descriptively, often in French, e.g. quiche au fromage (quiche with cheese) and quiche aux champignons (quiche with mushrooms) or conventionally, e.g. florentine (spinach) and provençale (tomatoes).



We selected the dish as we are both are interested in the french culture, and what's more French than making a dish called quiche. (Fun fact) quiche was first used in 1805's in the English language, that was 'borrowed' from the french and looking at its etymology of the word it literally means 'cake' or 'tart'.
Although the quiche dish is French, the custard in the pastry dish was known to be in the English cuisine at as early in the 14th century. Recipes for custards baked in pastry containing meat, fish and fruit are referred to Crustardes of flessh and Crustade in the 14th-century.

The former of cury and in 15th-century cookbooks as well. We thought that this was a good example of how two cultures collaborating to make a even better dish was a reflection of how food hybridization is a good progression in gastronomy whilst maintaining their respective identity.

Whilst making the Quiche I also had the important job of taking photos of my wonderful partner and the dish, throuighout the process I learnt alot about cooking from her, as I did the tedious jobs for her and how to do it effectively through her teaching.

My first taste was actually at the food fair, the final dish anyway, and my its tasted awesome. It definetly tastes alot better than it looks and it seem to have done well.

When the quiche was presented in the food fair it was first seen with skeptisim, was it sweet or was it savoury, one girl even asked which it was. But first impression are decieving, the moment the first person took one and took a bite it spread like wild fire. It was all "have you tried the quiche?" "where is it?!" it certainely made us feel good, as they had no idea the makers were in ear shot of their conversations. We enjoyed the food fair as there was many great dishes and are very glad the quiche was a huge success.

The universe has spoken

Hungry? but can not afford a $60 steak? well s**t you are in luck. Walking down lygon street can be very overwhelimg, with each restaurent having their own server telling you have a dine in here, with menus exploded in front of your face you have quite the hard time choosing. Well universal is a great choice.


Going in its not the brightest lit up place, kind of dim, but that's how I personally like it. I don't need any fancy lights while I dine, I just want good food and leave. But service seems important to people too, I mean as long as its not bad service I'm fine. Well luckily all the staff members are friendly even though you can tell they have had a draining day, they try and put up a big smile so that every customer got treated nicely and with respect.

I got to be honest, I have been to this restaurant many times and I order pretty much the same main everytime, the chicken parma. The chicken parma fits all my criteria, its huge and comes with the nicest chips, its cheap, $15 and even if it was a little more they give you so much it still worth it. So it comes out on this massive oval plate, and you really cant smell it, as most of the smell comes from the beer batter chips which is great with the mushroom sauce it comes with, which if you have a palate for fine taste the sauce isn't it, it seems like they whipped it up out of their fatty leftovers, but still great regardless.



Anyway once you have cut up that monster piece of schnitzel and dip it in the sauce you get a world of flavours and since its so big you get to do that like 20 times. The chips are the best, I'm the type to like the soft kind so it is a great side to my main, they battered it well 10/10. The last thing that comes with the parmais the coleslaw, now its not the best and really you are not going to have enough room for it anyway and the good part is over so really up to you. It kind of reminds me when I ate KFC with my family, ate all the good things, Ill leave the coleslaw to the rest of you guys. In all the fact all that came out a blindly fast makes it even more impressive, with the schnitzel just out of the fryer you will enjoy it thoroughly every time, as I have.

Spinach and ricotta ravioli with passata

I know, I know Italian pasta probably has been reviewed more times than Avatar. But the Spinach and ricotta ravioli is a must have dish in any Italian based gathering.



As the name suggest, Spinach and ricotta ravioli is made with ravioli pasta, a pasta that is served with two layer of thin pasta dough filled in with ingredients of your choice, but I recommend this one. But if it was the pasta alone it would be incredibly dry, so we in case in a nice warm tomato broth. Your broth would be in your typical onion and garlic based soup with tomatoes, as all great Italian dishes are, mixed in your pastas at the end.


As seen in the picture, your ricotta can be presented in a nice warm bowl ready to be stabbed with a fork and ready to eat or the broth and pasta can be separated and let everyone consume your wonderful dish however they like, as what matters is the taste, even though some might debate otherwise.

Besides its taste, what I love about this dish it screams Italian. The ravioli pasta alone has a history going back to the 14th century England. But when onion and garlic are mention, the first place I think of is Italy with their strong taste and smell emitting from their food.

Spinach and ricotta ravioli can made be made by even the most newest of chiefs, all you need is time to put the effort in making the pasta, and the sauce practically makes itself. Although you can purchase most of the ingredients alone all done for you, hell you could probably buy the pasta done for you but as always creating the dish yourself tends to be more satisfying and tastier.

"Do you have some Aligot?" "I got" "that is so cheesy" "So is the dish"

Aligot is a dish that serves to simultaneously cleanse and please the palate. The Aligot dish that can be simple made like this, is a dish made simple out of cheese combined with mashed potatoes and a dash of garlic. The dish first originated  in L'Aubrac region in southern Massif Central of France, it is generally presented in a neat bowl served immediately with a meat of their choosing. 


Although not as authentic as traditional french cuisines it holds an intrinsic identity to the French culture. The simple ingredients it holds, such as the potato has a long history with the Europeans and typical with the french. As depicted in my previous blog post, the potato had had its uses during the famine pre-revoltion, in fact some in might have been overused during those times as it was sometimes the only source of food.


However the main flavour comes from the exquisite cheese, primarily the Tomm de laguiole originating in Aveyron in the southern part of France. But why this cheese? Well, according to historical accounts, the monks passed down the recipe for making this cheese from cattle during the alpages to the local buronnierts, the owners of burons, or mountains huts. They describe it as "It is this surprisingly tender on the palate leaving a persisently wettish sensation". These combinations of simple flavours mixed with a handful of garlic gives a nice fatty sensation.

The Spanish Omelette

Although not as symbolic as the national Spanish dish, la olla podrida, the tortilla española or the Spanish Omellete is a highly renown dish originating in Navarre that goes back to the 1800's. The Spanish Omelette comprised up of mainly eggs, potatoes and onions, is a very light yet densely packed nutritious dish that had widespread throughout the world due to its simplicity and its fulfilling features.

The Spanish Omelette's however simplistic features is due to the fact that farmers would live in very sparse conditions and would tend to have very limited ingredients mainly what they grew such as eggs and potatoes. But at the same time they also knew how to make the eggs to have more volume in order to compensate the little eggs they did have and so the combination allowed them to create a fast, easy and nutritious dish to satisfy the biggest of stomachs.

However since then small alterations have been made, mainly cooking the omellette in extra virgin olive oil to have a soft crisp on the edges and possibly drizzling it a tad over to give it a different level of flavour. If that is not enough a bit of parsley gives it a nice bang with a nice scented aroma. But, as simple as the dish can be served, like this it can be easily presented with a other wide range of ingredients for example fresh tomatoes which goes very well with the whisked eggs of the omellete and other legumes of such kind.

 

As stated above the dish is very simple, so it is not very hard to prepare. It is quite uncommon around your average supermarket but its so simple to create with the your own fresh ingredients it really not a hassle. Thus it is probably best if you serve it yourself, rather than buy it prepared somewhere, as you can add your own mix of flavours onto the dish. It is best served hot and baked right out of the pan or oven when the potatoes are soft and toasty and the purity of the oil is still very pronounced. The ingredients in the omellete, specifically the potato, are a staple crop of the Spanish cuisine and it was not until they introduced to the Europeans that it got widespread and then around the globe. But the point is when it was first created they had the freshest ingredients you could have, grown right in their 'backyard', thus should not comprise either with yours.

The dish is an excellent choice in any occasion as it requires minimal ingrediants, as they did, and can be presented easily without the huge effort.