Seasonal Food - Asparagus Quiche

 It's the last weekend in May and we're deep into asparagus season. We've passed the first few harvests of a handful of spears and are into the gut. The first cutting I ate while standing next to the saucepan in the kitchen; the next three or four actually made it to the plate. By mid May I had enough tall stalks to make asparagus soup, which is far and away Zach's favourite soup in the world. (I like ALL the soups)

Last weekend, following the mini heat wave, the spears had put on another burst of growth, leaving me with nearly 300g of fresh trimmed asparagus to be used that day. I decided to make a quiche. 

Sublime to ridiculous - the big one was over a metre

It must be said, I never make quiche. Ever. Mostly because it involves pastry and I hate dealing with pastry. It's awful stuff - too cold and it doesn't roll out, too warm and it stretches and sticks to everything. Dreadful. With the exception of making mince pies, I only ever use the ready made pastry, and even then unwillingly.

However, asparagus quiche does look awfully pretty, and heaven knows I've got plenty of eggs from the hens at this time of year. I decided to give it a go.

• 1 pack of ready rolled shortcrust pastry
• 4 eggs
•  140ml milk
• 80g finely grated hard cheese (cheddar, pecorino, parmesan, whatever you like)
• as many chopped asparagus spears as you can fit in your dish (about 275g in my case)
• salt and pepper 
• grating of nutmeg (optional)

I put the pastry into a lined pie tin and popped it in the freezer while the oven heated to 160 fan. Then I blind baked the pastry for 15 minutes, removed the baking beans and put it back for another 10 minutes.

I whisked the eggs, milk, seasoning and most of the cheese together in a jug. The raw spears were cut into 3cm lengths and the tips set aside. I crammed as much asparagus into the pie tin as possible and poured the egg mix over it until full. I arranged the tips in a circle in the centre of the quiche and sprinkled the remaining cheese on top before sliding it c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y into the oven.

It baked in the oven until set which took about 35 minutes, give or take. The time in the oven was just enough to lightly cook the asparagus, still leaving some bite to it, which is my preference. If you prefer asparagus soft, by all means blanch them for a minute or two before baking the quiche.

I'm not going to lie, it was superb. Really, utterly delicious in the way perfectly fresh ingredients just outclass anything you can buy in a shop. The eggs and the asparagus were food metres, not miles, and the asparagus was cut from the veg bed while the pastry was blind baking.

It was far too much for the three of us - obviously Luke wouldn't eat it and Bonnie's still at uni - so I shared some with my Very Excellent Mate Penny. She was also a fan. Asparagus one of those crops, like peas and sweetcorn, which really benefit from being home grown and eaten as soon as you pick them. The sugars start to turn to starch the moment after they're picked so freshness is crucial to the best flavour.

So I guess the real first instructions for this quiche  are:

1.  Plant your asparagus crowns in February or March. Mulch well
2. Wait three years