Recipe- Beat The Monday Blues With Italian Sausage Quiche

This Sausage Quiche is everything you know and love about the classic Quiche Lorraine – but loaded with Italian flavours! This is made with Italian sausages which is the base flavouring for the filling so please don’t try to substitute it with ordinary sausages. It has to be made with proper Italian sausages, the ones where you can see chunks of meat and fat in them (as opposed to the standard ones that are a uniform pink colour as it is pureed with other things to fill them out).

Ingredients

Oil spray
1 1/2 sheets frozen shortcut pastry, thawed OR one 9"/23cm ready made pie crust
1 tbsp olive oil
2 garlic cloves , minced
1 small onion , diced (brown, white, yellow)
12 oz / 350g Italian sausages , casings removed
6 eggs
1 cup milk
1 tbsp dried Mixed Italian Herbs
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 cup grated cheddar cheese (or tasty, provolone, monterey jack or any other flavoured melting cheese)
2/3 cup cherry tomatoes , halved and seeds scooped out

Method

- Preheat oven to 180C/350F.

- Lightly spray a 9"/23cm quiche flan or pie dish with oil.

- Line with the pastry, trimming the excess. Use the extra 1/2 sheet to fill in any gaps as 1 sheet of pastry is slightly too small for a standard flan. Press to seal well.

- Cover pastry with parchment (baking) paper, then fill with raw rice or dried beans to weigh it down.

- Place in the oven and bake for 20 minutes, then remove parchment paper and rice/beans. Return to the oven for a further 10 minutes until golden. Remove from oven.

Prepare Filling

- Heat oil in a fry pan over high heat. Add the garlic and onions and sauté for 2 minutes. Then add the sausage and cook, using a spatula to break it up into pieces. Cook until the sausage is browned, then remove the pan from the stove (sausage can stay in the pan).

- Whisk the eggs, milk, herbs, salt and pepper in a bowl until combined.

Assemble And Bake Quiche

- Scatter half the cheese in the pie crust, then most of the sausage mixture. Pour over the egg mixture, top with remaining cheese and sausage. Then gently place the cherry tomatoes on the surface (cut side down).

- Carefully transfer to the oven. Bake for 40 minutes until golden brown on top and the filling has set.

- Remove from the oven and let rest for 10 minutes before serving.