A Makeup & Beauty Blog – Lipglossiping

My Nan was a pastry queen, all she had to do was look at a packet of flour for it to turn it into the richest, most buttery pastry known to man. I’m genuinely awful with pastry, I can’t leave it alone… I play and mess about with the dough too much until it’s as tough as boot leather. Probably for the best if I’m honest, were I a bonafide pastry queen like my Nan, I’d be at least 4st heavier than I am today. Every cloud and all that…

It’s to this end that I often ditch the pastry cutter and buy ready-made and the one I reach for most frequently is filo. It’s kinder to the waistline than shortcrust and puff… a little can go a surprisingly long way, satisfying that pastry craving without undoing a week’s worth of hard work.

I wanted to make a lighter quiche that would see us through a weekend of can’t be bothered to cook days.  Something that I could slice up and eat cold, enjoying it just as much as I had when it had been warm.  Quiche was the thing!

The cast of characters:

1 packet of Jus-Rol Filo Sheets
A handful of walnuts
2 whole eggs
3 egg whites (I keep a tetrapak of Two Chicks egg whites from Waitrose in my fridge)
2 large onions, sliced
50g blue cheese, crumbled
1 Tbsp butter, melted (I used Clover because I’m a phoney)
1 Tbsp brown sugar
2 Tbsp natural yoghurt
1 tsp Dijon mustard

Grab a heavy-bottomed pan and add a Tbsp oil, sliced onions, and the brown sugar.  On a medium heat, cook the onions for around 45-minutes until soft, aromatic, and caramelised.  Keep your eye on them and stir frequently, if the heat is too high… they will burn.

Lightly spray your flan dish with oil and lay your filo sheets into the dish, brush each sheet with a little melted butter before layering additional sheets until the entire dish is covered with a generous overhang at the edges.  You may need to cut your ready-prepared sheets into smaller squares before layering.

After 45-minutes, your caramelised onions should look something like this…

Grab a bowl and prepare your filling.  Preheat the oven 190° (180° fan).

Combine the eggs (both whole and whites), yoghurt, walnuts, blue cheese, mustard, and any seasoning you want (I only added black pepper) and mix until well-combined.  Add the caramelised onions into the egg-mixture and continue combining.

Pour the egg-mixture into the flan dish and gently fold the loose edges over the filling.

Bake in the centre of the oven for around 25-30 minutes.  The centre of the quiche should be firm, the pastry should be crispy.

Serve with a side salad… YUM!

If you have any leftover pastry… no one would blame you for making some little filo tarts!  I just filled mine with some sliced apple, raisins and a tiny squeeze of honey over each filling before pinching together the “tops”.  I used a standard muffin pan to bake them in.  So good!

Do you have fun with filo?  Have you ever made a filo quiche?  It was much easier than I expected!