Coronation Quiche – Celebrate King Charles Coronation with this delicious quiche made with Cheddar cheese, spinach, and broad beans. It’s perfect for serving at The Big Lunch.
On May 7th, The Big Lunch will take place throughout the UK to celebrate King Charles and Camilla’s coronation. Quiche is an excellent choice for the occasion. Additionally, this recipe could also be enjoyed as lunch while watching the coronation proceedings.
You can find the original recipe on The Royal Family website, but it’s designed for an 8 inch/20cm quiche and requires a pastry ring. To make it more accessible for home cooks, I adapted the recipe for a more common 9 inch tart tin. This required adjusting the ingredient volumes, including the amount of spinach used, which is an important consideration. Be sure to squeeze as much liquid as possible from the cooked spinach.
In my adaptation, I also included dried mixed herbs instead of the original fresh tarragon. This is a personal preference, as tarragon has a very strong flavour. The combination of herbs used in my recipe is more subtle and works well. Adapt the herbs to your preference.
For those who prefer a crustless quiche you can do this recipe without the pastry. Use a 9 inch cake tin that doesn’t have a removable base. Of course you need to butter the cake tin.
The Recipe
To make the quiche, you’ll need Cheddar cheese, broad beans, spinach, herbs, milk, cream, and eggs. The pastry is made with a combination of butter and lard for a wonderful texture. However, you can use all butter or all lard if you prefer.
This is a simple recipe, but it takes time as the pastry needs to be chilled a couple of times and blind-baked. None of it is difficult, though.
The recipe can be broken down into easy steps:
Make the pastry
Chill the pastry
Roll out the pastry
Blind-bake the pastry
Assemble the quiche
Bake the quiche.
It is as simple as that.
My Quiche
My pastry worked very well indeed. It shrank slightly during blind baking.
I brushed the case with a little egg white(from the eggs in the recipe) to help to seal the pastry.
Then I filled the case with all those lovely ingredients and baked my quiche.
I actually baked mine for 37 minutes, so in the recipe below I will give a slightly wider range than I mention in my video.
I allowed the quiche to cool down for a while before removing the outer ring. Then when it was cooled for longer, until just warm, I cut a slice to taste.
The pastry was so tender and the filling perfect. It set well, firming up more as it cooled. The flavour was fatastic. It was creamy and cheesy. The broad beans were nice and soft and so flavoursome. I also had the subtle herb flavour too, along with the spinach.
All in all it was just the perfect quiche.
It will be perfect for The Big Lunch.
I will definitely make it again for that occasion. On that occasion I will serve it with some salad or new potatoes and spring vegetables.
Harking back to the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Chicken is a great recipe too.
Coronation Quiche – The Big Lunch
Course: Pies, TartsDifficulty: Medium8
servings30
minutes40
minutesIngredients
- Pastry
250g(1 2/3 cups, based on scooping packed flour into a 250ml cup) plain flour
50g(3 1/2 tbsp) cold unsalted butter
50g(3 1/2 tbsp) cold lard
upto 60 ml(1/4 cup) milk
3g(1/2 tsp) salt
- Filling
125g(8 1/2 oz) grated Cheddar cheese
150ml(1/2 cup + 2 tbps) milk
220ml(1 cup + 4 tsp) double cream
3 medium eggs (large in USA)
180g(6 1/2 oz) cooked spinach, with all the water squeezed out(weight is after cooking)
84g(3 oz) cooked and drained broad beans(you can use canned beans too)
2g(1 tsp) dried mixed herbs – see not below
salt and pepper to season to taste
Directions
- Place the flour and salt into a food processor and add the lard and butter, then pulse until the mixture is like fine breadcrumbs(you can do this manually, rubbing the fats into the flour).
- Add the milk, a little at a time, and process until the mixture starts to clump into a dough. You may not need all the milk( I used 3 tbsp).
- Tip the dough out onto a work surface and gently knead it into a smooth dough.
- Form the dough into a disc and chill, in plastic wrap, for about 45 minutes.
- Place the dough onto a floured work surface and roll it out to about 5mm(1/4 inch), to a diameter of 13 inches.
- Place the pastry into a 9 inch/23cm tart tin to cover the base and sides, pressing against the sides and leaving a slight overhang.
- Prick the base of the pastry all over and chill again for 30 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 190C/170C Fan/375F.
- Place a sheet of parchment paper into the pastry case and cover with baking beans(or pasta, rice etc).
- Bake the pastry for 15 minutes then remove the baking beans and parchment paper.
- Brush the surface of the pastry with a little egg white(you can use egg white from the 3 eggs in the recipe).
- Place the pastry back into the oven and bake for another 5 minutes.
- Adjust the oven temperature to 160C/140C Fan/320F.
- Put the hot tart pan onto a baking tray.
- Place the eggs, cream, milk, herbs, salt and pepper into a bowl and whisk them until fully combined.
- Sprinkle half the cheese onto the base of the pastry.
- Cover the cheese with as much of the spinach as you wish(make sure the liquid has been squeezed out).
- Place the broad beans onto the spinach layer.
- Sprinkle the remaining cheese over the top.
- Carefully pour the egg, cream mixture over the cheese and, if necessary gently mix to spread everything evenly.
- Place the baking tray into the oven and bake the quiche for 30 to 40 minutes, until the top has begun to brown in places and the egg mixture is set.
- Remove from the oven and leave in the tart tin to cool until you wish to serve.
- Serve it warm or at room temperature.
Notes
- I used dried mixed herbs. The original recipe called for 1 tbsp of fresh tarragon. Use whatever you wish, remembering that for dried herbs you only need a tsp, and for fresh herbs you need a tbsp.