Quail Egg Quiche

Quiche is a classic brunch food that is bound to impress guests because it is both delicious and has a french name. The only thing that can make quiche more impressive is if you make it out of quail eggs. These adorable speckled eggs are often seen as a delicacy, which makes any food that has them as an ingredient automatically fancier. You can usually find them for a relatively cheap price at local Asian markets, or, if your zoning laws allow it, you can raise quail yourself and have a supply on hand. They taste pretty much identical to chicken eggs, though the yolk to white ratio is higher.

When our backyard quail get overambitious and the number of tiny eggs in our fridge gets overwhelming, we use up thirty in one go by making two quiches out of them. I like to make two different kinds of quiche to add variety to our lives, so I'll include two versions of the recipe here.

This recipe will also work with chicken eggs, but it will be less impressive and less adorable.

Preheat oven to 350° F

Quiche Lorraine

1 unbaked deep dish pie shell

1 cup bacon, chopped

1/2 cup green onion, chopped

1 1/2 cups swiss cheese, grated

15 quail eggs (or three chicken eggs)

1 can evaporated milk

1/8 tsp nutmeg

Salt and pepper to taste

Broccoli Potato Cheddar Quiche

1 unbaked deep dish pie shell

1 cup bacon, chopped

1/2 cup onion, chopped

1 1/2 cups broccoli florets, chopped

1 can sliced potatoes (or one medium potato, sliced)

1 1/2 cups cheddar cheese, grated

15 quail eggs (or three chicken eggs)

1 can evaporated milk

1/8 tsp paprika

Salt and pepper to taste

Quiche Lorraine

Sauté one cup of bacon over medium heat until it just starts to brown. Add onions and cook until the onions are clear and the bacon is crispy.

Broccoli Potato Cheddar Quiche

Sauté one cup of bacon over medium heat until it just starts to brown. Add broccoli and onions and cook until the onions are clear, the broccoli is tender, and the bacon is crispy.

Once the fillings are done sautéing, fill your pie shell(s).

Quiche Lorraine

Spread swiss cheese on the bottom of your pie shell. Scoop in your potato and green onion mixture and spread evenly over the cheese.

Broccoli Potato Cheddar Quiche

Spread cheddar cheese across the bottom of your pie shell. Then cover the cheese with potato slices. Scoop your bacon, onion, broccoli mixture over the potatoes and spread evenly.

This step is the same for either kind of quiche.

Crack your quail eggs into a large bowl and beat well.

Add the can of evaporated milk, salt, pepper, and nutmeg or paprika and beat until blended.

*Note: If you plan on cracking a lot of quail eggs, you'll probably want to purchase a pair of quail egg scissors. It only took trying to crack one egg to make us decide we really wanted some of these.

*Note 2: You'll notice I didn't beat the eggs first in the picture. I liked the way they looked floating in the milk for the picture, but it made beating them more difficult afterwards.

If your pie shell came in a flimsy tin, place it on a cookie sheet before pouring in the egg mixture. This will save you a lot of spilled quiche when you move it.

Pour the egg/milk mixture slowly over the other ingredients in the shell.

Bake your quiche at 350° F for 30-35 minutes or until crust is golden and knife inserted in the quiche comes out clean.

If you are cooking two at once it will probably take about 45 minutes.

Let the quiche cool for at least five minutes before serving.

Serve any time of day you'd like, since quiche is one of those magical brunch foods that defy all labels.

Your guests will be extra impressed if you pull out some quail eggs for scale and tell them it took fifteen eggs to make.

Enjoy!