smoked salmon and watercress quiche
We finally received our wedding video, eight months after our big day. We had been impatiently waiting for it, wondering if it would be as amazing as we remember the ceremony and party being last summer. We tore the package immediately after we received it and watched the one-hour-and-a-half video before dinner on Friday night. All the wonderful memories came back while we were watching ourselves smiling and crying of happiness during the ceremony and dancing during the party like the night would never end. I am so glad we live in the 21st century and are able to have a film of the most beautiful day in our lives, so we get to relive it again and again each time we watch it.
I’ve never been happier than I’ve been these past eight months. Jon has, and will always be, the best husband I could have ever wished for, loving and caring, and ever so patient — even when I’m crying over a recipe that I just messed up in the kitchen. He always brings out the best of me and is my greatest supporter, both inside and outside the kitchen. He’s been encouraging me lately to bring more variety to savormania, and so, I decided this Sunday to try cooking something that we’d both love with smoked salmon — an ingredient that I’m not so fond of, but that Jon really adores.
I really love salmon but don’t like eating it raw; I find it a bit slimy, so I always stay away from smoked salmon. I knew I had to cook the smoked salmon so I would like it, so I thought about making a smoked salmon quiche and searched for another vegetable to complement the fumé taste of the fish. While I was writing up my seasonal produce guide for March, I had taken note of the fruits and vegetables I had never cooked with, promising myself that I would try cooking with one of them during the month. Spinach would have worked well in this recipe, but having cooked with it a zillion times, I chose watercress instead, a leafy aquatic plant which has been ranked as the healthiest vegetable in the world. It turns out that its health benefits have been traced way back to around 400 BC, when Hippocrates chose to open the first hospital in the world on the Greek island of Kos next to a stream just so he could have access to fresh watercress. Hippocrates believed that watercress was able to cure many of his patients — a claim that was then reinforced when the English botanist Nicholas Culpeper found that it could cleanse blood. Today, watercress has been found to contain over 15 vitamins and minerals, beating spinach in iron levels, milk in calcium levels, and oranges in vitamin C levels. Let’s face it, quiche is absolutely divine, but it is full of cream and eggs… Knowing about all of watercress’ benefits made me feel a bit less guilty about eating two slices of this quiche for dinner on Sunday night, and packing an extra slice to take to work today.
- 1 pâte brisée
- 200g smoked salmon, shredded
- 30g watercress
- 1 tablespoon chopped dill
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 2 eggs, beaten
- 1 tablespoon dry onion mix
- Pepper to taste
- Preheat oven to 350°F/180°C. Roll out the pâte brisée in a circle shape and place it in a round Pyrex. Press the sides around the Pyrex, prick the bottom of the dough with a fork and place a sheet of parchment paper on top of the dough. Fill with ceramic pie weights and blind bake for 10 minutes until golden.
- Put the shredded smoked salmon, watercress and dill on the bottom of the pâte brisée.
- In a small mixing bowl, whisk the heavy cream, eggs and dry onion mix. Pour the mixture over the smoked salmon, watercress and dill. Sprinkle with a bit of pepper.
- Bake for 30 minutes until golden. Serve warm or at room temperature.
CAN BE PREPARED IN ADVANCE: Eat at room temperature or simply reheat, covered with aluminium foil, in the oven at 320°F/160°C for 10 minutes
How did your smoked salmon and watercress quiche come out? Share photos of your recipe on Instagram by tagging #savormania
I am off to the supermarket to stock up on watercress now! Is it even better than kale?
It turns out that watercress is much healthier than kale — although kale is still a super healthy green full of folate and more calcium than a cup of milk! The Centers for Disease Control recently ranked kale as number 15 on its ‘Powerhouse Fruits and Vegetables List’, while watercress ranked number 1! Both are great greens, but I have a slight preference for watercress, and not only due to all its health benefits 🙂