Position a rack in the centre of the oven and preheat to 160°C/gas 3.
Cut baking parchment into twelve 12.5-cm squares. Crumple each square into a ball, wet the ball under running water, squeeze out all the water and flatten them out again. (This makes them more malleable.) Just before you’re ready to bake the shells (not sooner), take them from the fridge. (They must be nice and cold when you pop them in the oven, or else your quiches will be greasy.) Use one square of baking parchment to line each shell and fill each one almost to the brim with dried beans or raw rice. (You can save the rice or beans to use the next time you bake.) Put the shells back in the fridge for about 15 minutes.
Bake, rotating the baking sheet once, just until the dough is no longer raw but not yet coloured at all, 20 to 25 minutes. Remove the beans or rice and parchment squares. Gently prick the bottom and sides of the dough with a fork, which will prevent it from puffing up as it bakes. Return to the oven and bake until the shells are evenly light golden brown and the edges have pulled away from the sides of the pans, 25 to 30 minutes. Let the shells cool completely before you fill them. Leave the oven on.
make the filling and assemble the quiche
Bring a medium pot of water to a boil and salt it generously until it’s slightly less salty than the sea. Cook the asparagus stalks in the water just until they’ve lost their raw crunch, 1 to 1½ minutes, using a spider to transfer them to a colander to drain. Do the same with the tips, keeping them separate from the stalks.
Melt the butter in a medium cast-iron frying pan over medium-low heat until frothy. Add the onion, garlic, and Maldon salt and cook, stirring now and again, until the onion is soft and just barely browned at the edges, about 12 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat.
Combine the whole eggs and egg yolks in a large bowl and whisk briefly. Combine the cream and milk in a small pot, set it over medium-high heat, and cook just until it reaches a strong simmer. Immediately remove it from the heat, then very gradually pour it into the bowl with the eggs, whisking as you pour. Stir in 2 teaspoons of sea salt. Let the egg mixture, onion mixture and asparagus come to room temperature.
Divide the onion mixture among the shells, spreading slightly to form a layer. Spoon in the asparagus stalks (about 2 generous tablespoons per shell). Whisk the egg mixture, then ladle in enough of it to come up to about 0.5cm from the rim. Add the asparagus tips (two or three per quiche) and the mint. Pull the oven rack forward and carefully transfer the tray to the rack, then top off each quiche with a little more egg mixture. (This way the quiches won’t spill as you transport them to the oven.)
Bake the quiches, rotating the baking sheet once, just until the egg mixture has set, 20 to 25 minutes. It should no longer be liquidy, but should still be soft and moist to the touch.
Remove the moulds (or, if using tartlet tins, let the quiches cool slightly before carefully removing the quiches) and let the quiches cool slightly or to room temperature before you dig in.
ROASTED YOUNG ONIONS WITH SAGE PESTO
My knees go a bit wobbly when I pull these onions out of the oven, because I know they’ve given up every last bit of bite and become wonderfully creamy. They taste so sweet, you’ll have a hard time convincing people that all you did was roast them with salt and olive oil. No embellishment is necessary, but salty, woodsy sage pesto sure makes a nice one.
serves 4 to 6 as a side
6 young onions (the size of tennis balls), yellow, red, or a combination (see ‘Young Onions’, opposite)
Maldon or another flaky sea salt
110ml plus 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
A big handful of sage leaves
1 small garlic clove, roughly chopped
3 tablespoons pine nuts
25g Parmesan cheese, finely grated
Position a rack in the centre of the oven and preheat to 180°C/gas 4.
Cut off the onion greens, leaving just 1cm or so above the bulb. Peel off the thin, leathery outer layer of each onion and trim off the spidery roots, but make sure to leave the little nub intact (that is, the tough flat part the roots protrude from). This will keep the onions from falling apart as they cook. Halve each onion lengthwise and sprinkle the cut sides with a few healthy pinches of salt.
Find an ovenproof cast-iron frying pan or heavy enamelled baking dish wide enough to hold the onion halves in a single layer with a little room to spare. Add 3 tablespoons of the oil to the pan and set it over high heat until the oil just begins to smoke. Lower the heat to medium, carefully add the onions cut sides down and cook, using tongs to peek under the onions occasionally, until you see spots of golden brown, 5 to 8 minutes.
Pop the pan in the oven and cook until the cut sides are an even deeper golden brown but have no black spots, 20 to 25 minutes. Carefully turn the onions over with tongs and raise the oven temperature to 220°C/gas 7. Continue cooking until the onions are very soft but not falling apart, 10 to 15 minutes more.
Meanwhile, put the sage in a small food processor with the garlic, pine nuts, Parmesan and 1 teaspoon of salt, and pulse several times. Add the remaining 110ml of oil to the mixture and process full-on, stopping to scrape down the sides and stir gently if necessary, until the mixture is well combined but still chunky.
Arrange the onions prettily on a plate. Spoon some pesto, as much as you like, here and there on top of the onions. (Reserve the remaining pesto for another day.) Eat straightaway.
YOUNG ONIONS
At farmers’ markets in the spring, you’ll spot piles of onions with their greens attached. The onion bulbs will either be slim, like those of scallions, or bulbous. I think of the former as spring onions. I think of the latter, which are what you want for this recipe, as young onions, because their bulbs are big enough to become sweet and creamy in the oven but haven’t yet been left to cure and develop the papery skins of mature onions. I’m reluctant to say that you can substitute mature red onions, which have a sharper bite, because the result won’t be quite as sweet and delicious. Reluctant, but not opposed.
BOILED POTATOES WITH BUTTER AND MINT
I never get bored with potatoes. They’re one of those quietly wonderful vegetables. The potato isn’t flashy. It doesn’t advertise with bright colours like tomatoes or carrots. It’s not a fleeting beauty like ramps. It doesn’t have the big, sweet flavour of corn or peas. The potato, rather, is comforting and always there for you. The potato is like a good mate you’ve known for ever.
I discovered my affection for the potato in primary school. Me and my little friends would storm the cafeteria at lunch. Most of the food was rubbish, except the buttery boiled potatoes, which I’d eat by the pile. This is my grown-up version. It’s barely more complicated – the mint adds brightness and the lemon cuts through the starch and fat – but a lot more moreish. For you Yanks, moreish just means that each bite makes you want to eat more of it.
serves 4 as a side
450g small potatoes all, about the same size
1 tablespoon Maldon or another flaky sea salt
50g unsalted butter, cut into several pieces
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