An Heirloom Tomato Quiche for a Satisfying Summer Meal

One summer, I was given a standard, mass-market-type tomato. I left it on my windowsill and promptly forgot about it. When I found it two months later, there wasn’t a single spot, wrinkle or blemish on its glow-in-the-dark (well, almost) skin. It was so unnatural, I threw it out. Mass-market tomatoes just can’t compete with my favorite member of the nightshade family: the heirloom tomato. I’ve never met an heirloom tomato I didn’t want to devour. And if it has a few bumps or cracks on it, so much the better. This quiche spotlights heirlooms beautifully. If mozzarella isn’t your cup of tea, there will be another cheese out there to suit your personality.

But there’s only one kind of tomato (for me).

Heirloom Tomato Quiche

Serves 6

Ingredients

Crust (for a single pie crust, halve the recipe)

• 1 ¼  cups flour
• ½ Tbsp sugar
• ½ cup salted butter, very cold, cubed*
• 6 tbsp cup ice water

Tomato filling

• 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
• 2 heirloom tomatoes, sliced ¼ inch thick
• 1 small leek, rinsed well and thinly sliced
• 5 eggs
• 1½ cups heavy cream 2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp hot sauce (I like Frank’s RedHot or Louisiana)

Directions

For the pie crust

Prepare the pastry: In a large bowl, whisk together the flour and sugar. Add the butter. Using your hands, two forks or a pastry blender, cut the butter into the flour mixture until it is the size of peas. They won’t all be uniform in size, but that’s okay: you want to avoid warming up the butter too much.

Add the ice water all at once and gently knead the dough until it just comes together (I repeat: Do not overwork the dough!).

With floured hands, divide the dough in half. Form into two disks, wrap each disk tightly in plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for at least 1 hour.

When you’re ready to roll the dough, take the disks out of the fridge and let them rest on the countertop for at least 15 minutes, to take the chill off them. If you roll out cold dough, it will crack and leak.

Lightly flour a clean work surface and roll out one of the disks to a 13-inch-diameter circle. Transfer to a 9-inch pie plate and trim the edges to fit the plate. For a double crust recipe: Roll out the second piece of pastry to a 13-inch diameter circle and place in the fridge to chill while you prepare the filling.

For the filling

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Prick the bottom of the prepared pie crust with a fork. Par-bake for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and sprinkle the mozzarella over the bottom of the pie crust. Layer the tomatoes on top, then the leeks.

In a blender, combine the eggs, cream, salt and hot sauce. Blend on medium-low speed for 1 minute or until frothy. Slowly pour half the blended mixture into the pie crust. Let the mixture settle into the tomatoes and cheese before pouring in the rest.

Place the quiche on a baking sheet to catch any overflow and put in the preheated oven. After 20 minutes, the quiche will start to rise. At this point, loosely cover it with a piece of aluminum foil to prevent excess browning.

Bake for 15 minutes or until the quiche is completely set.

*Cook’s note: Vegetable shortening or lard make for a traditionally tender-flaky crust, but I am a butter lover, so it is always butter for me. Much trickier to get a tender result, but once you have mastered the art of flakiness, you will be a butter convert!

Excerpted from Together at Sobo by Lisa Ahier, with Susan Musgrave. Copyright © 2023 Lisa Elaine Ahier. Photographs by Jeremy Koreski. Published by Appetite by Random House®, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited. Reproduced by arrangement with the Publisher. All rights reserved.

Next: Entertaining this Summer? Try These Mushroom and Swiss Cheese Mini-Quiches