tiny bites
Nicole and Andrew came over for dinner tonight and it was a good excuse to play around with an appetizer idea I’d been tossing about in my head. I wanted it to be a little quiche-like in flavor, but without making mini quiches (remember, I am on a tiny foods or individual servings kick). So I deconstructed my standard quiche recipe: bacon, eggs, milk, gruyère, mushrooms, onions, broccoli, and picked out representative flavors and tossed them onto puff pastry.
the first test – uncooked
baked
I made tiny cutouts of puff pastry and topped them with sautéed mushrooms, crumbled bacon, and gruyère. Then I monitored the baking to see if the pastry would rise and dump all of the ingredients off to the side. It didn’t, and I was delighted. But the gruyère bubbles out during the baking, so in the last two minutes, you have to top with more cheese. I had another iteration for mechanics and because we hadn’t eaten any breakfast or lunch…
second wave
bake time needs increase and temp needs reduction
On the last go (when Nicole and Andrew were here) I put some cheese on the pastry, then the shrooms, then bacon, then more cheese. That is when a few toppings got tossed during baking. The mushrooms create a nice dent in the dough when baking, but the cheese allowed the pastry to rise like normal, not cratering the way it did before. In the end, I think I’ve figured it out and I like the flavor combination. And it paired nicely with a Pinot Noir from California’s north coast.
I love appetizers.
