Chicken pecan quiche * pie crust *

Chicken Pecan Quiche

½ to 1 c cooked chicken, chopped

1 ½ shredded Cheddar cheese

¼ c onion, diced

1 Tbsp flour

½ c chopped pecans, divided

3 eggs

1 c milk

1 tsp brown mustard

salt and pepper

about ¼ c vegetables, chopped small (broccoli florets, green pepper, etc.)

Swiss cheese slices

Pie crust:

¾ c all-purpose flour

¾ c whole wheat flour

½ tsp salt

½ c fat

4-5 Tbsp ice water

Grease the bottom and sides of a deep-dish pie plate. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.

Mix the flours and salt in a mixing bowl and cut the fat in until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add enough ice water to make a firm dough. Do not overmix. Roll the dough out thin, fold in quarters, and place in the pie dish. Trim edges and prick the bottom of the pie crust all over with the tines of a fork. Bake for about eight minutes, remove, and set aside.

Saute onions in a little oil while the pastry is baking. If you are using fresh broccoli or green pepper, saute with the onions until tender. Once the pie crust is out, place slices of Swiss cheese in the bottom of the pie to roughly cover the bottom. Turn the oven down to 325 degrees.

In a medium bowl mix the chicken, shredded cheese, sauteed onions, flour, and half the pecans. Pour into the pie crust over the Swiss cheese. Then beat the eggs well with the milk, and add mustard, salt and pepper, and broccoli. Pour over the chicken layer and top with the remaining pecans.

Bake at 325 for 50 minutes.

Welcome to the Real Life Cooking Podcast. I’m Kate Shaw and this week we’re going to learn how to make chicken pecan quiche.

I have no idea where I got this recipe. I’ve had it written down for a long time but only tried it recently, and it’s phenomenal! It’s a great way to use a small amount of leftover chicken, too. The recipe calls for a full cup of chicken, but I only had a scant half cup and it worked out just fine.

This is basically a quiche, which means it’s rich but doesn’t feel heavy. The crust is the best part and really makes the dish, so while it is a little bit of a hassle to roll out dough, it’s absolutely worth it. You can use a ready-made crust, but make sure it’s not sweetened and that it’s a deep-dish crust.

You will need a big mixing bowl, a skillet, and a deep-dish pie plate for this recipe. Before you do anything else, you need to do some prep. If you want to add vegetables to the dish to add color and flavor, get them out now and chop them up small. I’ve made this recipe twice and both times used frozen broccoli. The first time I thawed it, the second time I forgot but cut the frozen florets up tiny with a pair of kitchen shears, and both methods worked fine. Dice the onion and cut some thin slices of Swiss cheese, unless you’re using pre-sliced Swiss. If your chicken pieces aren’t already shredded or cut up small, do that now.

Measure out your pecans and break them into smaller pieces if you need to. Pecans are usually sold as “halves and pieces,” and you want the pieces for this recipe. It takes a few minutes to break the halves in two or three pieces, so do this ahead of time. Or just use pecan halves, I don’t care.

Next, grease the pie plate well and set it aside. Then measure out your dry ingredients for the pastry. This recipe calls for half all-purpose flour and half whole-wheat flour, which makes the pastry more robust and toothsome than if it’s made of only all-purpose flour, but if you don’t have whole wheat flour you can use all-purpose. Bread flour works well in this recipe too. Incidentally, this pastry recipe is a good one to keep on hand for any recipe that calls for a savory pie crust. It makes enough to easily line the bottom of a deep-dish pie plate