evaporated milk

Once or twice a week we have a cheese meal at the cottage. Today’s recipe is for cheese flan, as it used to be called or the more modern form – cheese quiche. There are lots of variations of this dish. This is the basic one.

Ingredients:

1lb of short pastry, made up. I make my own pastry using self-raising flour, Flora margarine and Trex shortening.

(American readers: I find that Crisco is very similar to Trex.)

80zs mature Cheddar cheese (American people can buy this in the foreign section of Food City. Kerrygold do an aged cheddar, which is very nice).

Small tin of evaporated milk (or half a large tin).

(American readers: If find that your evaporated milk is thinner than the one we buy in England. Therefore, don’t put too much in or your flan will be too loose.)

2 eggs. I use medium size.

1 tomatoe for garnish

Have you noticed how thin the tins are getting these days? It’s hard to find one that is easy to open now.

Method:

Make a lb of pastry and leave in the fridge to cool for 20 minutes. Meanwhile light the oven and set to hot. By the time you’ve made the filling, the oven will be just the right temperature and the pastry will be just right, ready and waiting for you in the fridge. (ice-box).

Next make the filling.

Grate the cheddar cheese, keeping back 2 ozs to sprinkle on the top of the flan.

Put the grated cheese in a medium sized bowl, add the two eggs and all of the evaporated milk.

Stir together with a fork.

Slice a tomatoe fairly thinly and set aside until later with the 2 ozs of cheese.

Take the pastry out of the fridge and roll out a third of it. That should be enough to line the base of a medium sized flan case.

Line the flan case and trim the top edge with a sharp knife.

Pour the filling into the flan case and lay the tomatoe slices on top.

Sprinkle the remaining 2 ozs of grated cheddar cheese on top of the tomatoe.

There will be enough pastry left over to make a meat pie (recipe coming another day) and a batch of jam tarts.

Cook the flan at the top of a hot oven for 30 minutes. Test after 25 minutes. Take the flan carefully out of the oven and give the flan case a slight shake (note: slight). If the flan filling is under-done in the middle, it will wobble a bit. If it does, put it back in the oven for the last 5 minutes. If the filling is firm in the middle, the flan is done.

30 minutes does it for me. I use Gas 6.Your oven might be different. I usually turn off the oven after the flan is done, but leave the flan in the oven. That sets the filling for sure. Make sure most of the heat has escaped from the oven before you do this, otherwise the flan will keep on cooking and may even burn.

Let’s take a closer look, Yumm!