Lisa Salmon made the King and Queen Consort’s coronation quiche recipe containing spinach and broad beans – and even her teenagers ate (most of) it.
At first glance, the King and Queen Consort’s personally-chosen ‘coronation quiche’ recipe looks fairly cheap and easy to make.
Featuring spinach, broad beans, cheese and fresh tarragon in a no-faff recipe (you put everything in a pre-baked pastry case and stick it in the oven), what could possibly be the problem?
Fresh tarragon, it turns out. It may be easy to get your hands on when you’re royal, but I went to three supermarkets and even tried one online, and just could not find any.
The recipe has been shared on the royal family social media channels in celebration of Coronation Big Lunches, which aim to bring communities together to celebrate over the coronation weekend (May 6-8).
Great British Bake Off judge and Big Lunch ambassador Prue Leith was one of the first to try it, at a special Big Lunch at Westminster Abbey, and described it as “absolutely delicious”.
Leith added: “There was no soggy bottom, the custard was not overcooked and dry, and the balance of tarragon was perfect – a really good quiche.”
The royal family’s website says the dish is “a deep quiche with a crisp, light pastry case and delicate flavours of spinach, broad beans and fresh tarragon”. It does not, of course, mention the fact finding fresh tarragon is about as easy as wearing the Crown Jewels on a night out at Wetherspoons.
I resorted to using dried tarragon (£1.09 at Morrison’s), with the internet suggesting using one teaspoon of the dried variety for every one tablespoon of the fresh stuff, as dried tarragon is much stronger tasting.
The other ingredients were easy to find, and pretty affordable. A packet of frozen broad beans is about £1.50 (and you only need a handful for the recipe), you can buy a small pack of spinach for 99p, double cream costs about £1.35, and the other ingredients – like milk, eggs, cheese and butter – you might have in your fridge already.
While the recipe does give the option of using shop-bought pastry, I made my own – tweaking the recipe to make it vegetarian. Although the quiche filling is all veggie, the pastry included a mixture of butter and lard, which is most definitely not vegetarian! I used all butter for my pastry instead, which was fine.
Making pastry is easy enough, and I baked my pastry case ‘blind’ for the suggested 15 minutes. I suspect a few minutes longer would have been better though, as while I’m pleased to say the finished quiche didn’t have a soggy bottom, it wasn’t exactly ‘crisp and light’ as described.
The filling couldn’t be easier. Half the cheese, cooked spinach (which I squeezed in kitchen paper to get rid of excess moisture, although the recipe doesn’t suggest this) and broad beans go in the bottom of the pre-baked case, then a mixture of the double cream, milk, eggs, tarragon and seasoning are poured on top, followed by the rest of the cheese (I added a bit more than suggested, simply because we all love cheese!).
After baking for 25 minutes, the quiche looked roughly like the one in the official Palace picture (although perhaps not quite as neat). But, what did it taste like?
Creamy was my overriding impression, and the hint of tarragon was nice, but I wished I’d added a little more. And to be honest, although I like spinach and broad beans, I didn’t really notice them taste-wise – although the quiche looks very green.
Green food is not something eagerly consumed by my teenage sons, so I was expecting them to turn their noses up at this. Surprisingly, they didn’t – and, although they picked out the broad beans, they actually said they liked the rest of the quiche and ate it all. Amazing!
However, although the recipe claims to serve six, there was just about enough for four of us – six portions would be very small.
The final verdict goes to my 19-year-old son, who concisely described the coronation quiche as: “Creamy and cheesy, with a twist.”
How to make the coronation quiche
(Serves 6)
For the pastry:
125g plain flour
Pinch of salt
25g cold butter, diced
25g lard
2tbsp milk
Or 1 x 250g block of ready-made shortcrust pastry
For the filling:
125ml milk
175ml double cream
2 medium eggs
1tbsp chopped fresh tarragon
Salt and pepper
100g grated cheddar cheese,
180g cooked spinach, lightly chopped
60g cooked broad beans or soya beans
Method
1. To make the pastry: Sieve the flour and salt into a bowl; add the fats and rub the mixture together using your fingertips until you get a sandy, breadcrumb-like texture. Add the milk a little at a time and bring the ingredients together into a dough. Cover and allow to rest in the fridge for 30-45 minutes.
2. Lightly flour the work surface and roll out the pastry to a circle a little larger than the top of the tin and approximately 5mm thick.
3. Line the tin with the pastry, taking care not to have any holes or the mixture could leak. Cover and rest for a further 30 minutes in the fridge.
4. Preheat the oven to 190°C.
5. Line a 20cm flan tin with greaseproof paper, add baking beans and bake blind for 15 minutes, before removing the greaseproof paper and baking beans.
6. Reduce the oven temperature to 160°C.
7. Beat together the milk, cream, eggs, herbs and seasoning.
8. Scatter half the grated cheese in the blind-baked base, top with the chopped spinach and beans and herbs, then pour over the liquid mixture.
9. If required gently give the mixture a delicate stir to ensure the filling is evenly dispersed but be careful not to damage the pastry case.
10. Sprinkle over the remaining cheese. Place into the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes until set and lightly golden.
