Quark quiche Lorraine

Dave has this thing about German foods he learns about on websites he reads while learning German. It leads to things like a quest for pinkelwurst sausage and to picking up quark cheese when we saw it in the cheese case. Apparently this substance is ubiquitous in Germany. One place it’s certainly not ubiquitous is on the epicurious site, where I often start out a search for how to use up something. Usually there are thousands of hits I have to sift through; this time, there were six, so I branched out and found this one.

Quark quiche Lorraine

Adapted from the Lake District Dairy Co. website, a dairy brand owned by British dairy farmers. The premise of the recipe is that using quark instead of crème fraiche lowers the calories and fat while upping the protein and calcium. Since I don’t use crème fraiche in my usual quiche Lorraine recipe, it’s clearly aiming at a different texture anyway.

Ingredients

1 shortcrust pastry or pie crust

7 slices of bacon

1 pound quark cheese (or substitute a mix of 2/3 ricotta and 1/3 sour cream if you can’t find it)

½ cup grated cheddar cheese, divided

4 large eggs, beaten

¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg

Method

Roll out pastry crust. If you’re feeling ambitious and like making an actual pastry style crust, press it into a 10-inch tart pan with a removable bottom. If you’re feeling rushed, like I was, you can cheat and use a premade pie crust unrolled into a quiche pan. Prick surface with a fork. Chill for 10 minutes. Line crust with foil and fill with pie baking weights or dried beans. Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes. Remove foil with weights and bake for 5 more minutes until the pastry is pale golden brown.

Meanwhile, fry bacon until starting to turn color. You don’t want to get this breakfast-crisp, since it’s going to cook more later. Remove from pan and set aside until cool enough to cut into small pieces.

Scatter bacon over crust. Scatter 2/3 of the cheese over the bacon.

Mix quark cheese, eggs, nutmeg and salt and pepper to taste in a mid-size bowl. Pour mixture over top of the bacon and cheese.  Sprinkle top with remaining cheese. Bake at 375 degrees until golden and the middle is still a tad wobbly. Remove from oven and let stand for 5 minutes before removing from tin and slicing. Serves 6.

Rating: Not the same beast as actual quiche Lorraine, but then again it doesn’t purport to be that. (My own favorite comes from "Best of Baking" from HP Books.) It's slightly less puffy, and has more the consistency of quiche once it's been refrigerated. It was certainly tasty, and a fast weeknight supper if you've got ready-to-roll crust. I still think of quark as an elemental particle or a floundering pagination program, but now I've got a third definition and a possible use for it. No sign of pinkelwurst, though.