I'm putting the finishing touches on a French cheese tart that's filled with eggs and cheese and cream.

And this is today's show on The French Chef.

(theme music playing) Welcome to The French Chef.

This is Julia Child.

And this is the famous quiche lorraine, a cheese tart made out of cream and bacon and eggs in a lovely buttery French pastry crust.

This is what we're going to do now, and we're going to do several other kinds of quiches and I'm going to show you how to make a pastry dough.

A quiche, as you noticed, just stands in its own shell.

It's not supported by anything else.

And a quiche is only a mixture of eggs and cream or milk and flavoring.

That's all there is to it.

It's a foolproof mixture and absolutely delicious to eat.

You can make them ahead of time.

I'm going to put this back into the oven.

And it just... keep it warm until we're ready to eat it.

Now, we're going to make a pastry crust.

And this is what we want to do, is to make a tart shell like this, which you cook partially before you put the quiche mixture in and bake.

You see, it's just standing by itself.

And I'm going to use one of these French rings, which you can buy at French import shops, but I'm also going to use another method so you'll see what we do.

Now we're going to measure out... we have to measure out our flour, and I want to speak a little bit about flour because there are so many different types of flour.

All-purpose flour is usually in most parts of the country made out of hard wheat with a little soft wheat blended in.

In some parts of the country, it's made out of soft wheat with a little hard wheat blended in.

It makes quite a difference in baking qualities, and you just have to... the best thing to do is to always use the same type of flour so you'll know how it acts.

It usually is all-purpose, is the kind I'm using today, which is a blend of hard wheats.

And when you measure flour, you should always, if you're doing a recipe, notice how in the recipe they measure the flour.

Because it makes an awful lot of difference, not so much in pie doughs as we're going to make, but in cakes, exactly how you do measure it because it can make a difference in how much... in weight, to a great extent.

Now, I'm going to do a method that my French colleagues and I use with a sifter.

I like this kind, it just fits into a cup like that.

You squeeze it and that sifts the flour through.

So, you fill your cup with flour...

I mean, you fill your sifter with flour, and then you just sift directly into the cup.

The cup is on a piece of wax paper.

And you sift until the cup is overflowing, and then sweep the flour off with a knife.

And in.

Now we're going to use two cups of flour.

I'll give full details as we go along, so if you want to take notes, you can.

There.

There are some methods of measuring flour where you sift all the flour onto the paper and then put it in with a spoon, but we think that takes too long.

If you always do it this way, you get a pretty accurate measurement.

If you were living in France, you would be using scales so you don't have to go through all this business of sifting.

Now, I like to work with my hands, so I'm going to wash them.

You can...

I think it's very important in cooking to learn to use your hands, because they're your best instrument and you get the feel of things, particularly if you're making a pastry dough.

You can, of course, use blenders and forks and things like that, but you often just won't get the right feel in doughs, and if you're going to go into puff pastry and other things like that, you just have to have the correct feel.

And now, a French... a French dough is made out of butter, and that's what makes it so good.

But if you're using all-purpose flour-- French flour is soft wheat with some hard wheat blended in-- all-purpose flour gives a rather brittle dough if you use all butter, so I'm going to use some butter and a little bit of white vegetable shortening, which seems to tenderize the dough.

I'm going to use... we've got two cups of flour, and I'm going to use one stick of butter.

This is chilled butter.

I'm going to cut it up into little pieces, like that.

Then I'm going to use three tablespoons of vegetable shortening, which is always a nuisance to measure.

I think the best way to do it is to put it in a spoon and then scrape it out with a rubber scraper.

Not quite it.

This little bit of vegetable shortening does seem to do the trick.

There.

And now, I think I'd better wrap my towel around me so I won't get myself all covered with flour.

Now, this step is blending the fat into the flour, and you do it by rubbing it through the tips of your fingers that way.

And you want to do this until it's broken up into the size of, well, small oatmeal flakes.

Now, we want a little salt in, about a little over a quarter of a teaspoon full.

And a little bit of sugar, which helps the dough to color-- I'm using sort of a big pinch there.

And then we want between five and six tablespoons of cold water.

If it's a hot day, you'll use ice water.

Just pour the water in and then take your cupped hand like that and just rapidly work it together.

And any parts that haven't quite firmed together... you put that part on the bowl, and that'll take just a tiny bit more water, so just add it by droplets.

There.

I guess I better get that out of the way here.

This is a very unusual and un-American method of the final blending of your fat and flour in that you're going to push it down with the heel of your hand like that.

You see, it's a smear, and you do it rapidly.

Everything you do with pastry, particularly if you're working in a hot place, you do just as rapidly as possible.

Now see, I'm going that way.

It seems funny at first, but you get used to it.

Now, you have to scrape it together again.

You can use... this is a French scraper, very convenient.

I'm using marble, which I like to work on very much.

I just bought this at a furniture store.

And if you don't have a French scraper, you can use that kind of a thing, which you can get at any hardware store.

Now, to get this extra flour off your hands, you...

I mean, you just do that.

And then take your ball and pick up all those little bits.

We're going to wrap it in wax paper and chill it.

There, there's our wax paper.

You want to chill it for about two hours in the refrigerator because you want the butter to harden up again.

And you also want the dough to rest after you've worked it.

Now, I have some that has already been chilled.

Get some of this off here.

And see how useful it is to have a scraper like that?

Now, here's some chilled dough that I made last night.

You can make the dough and let it sit in the refrigerator for, oh heavens, two or three days, and it will freeze perfectly if you just wrap it up and then put it in a plastic bag.

And now, we're going to roll it out.

If it's hard and it's been in the icebox, say, for a day or two, you just beat it.

Like that.

You can be very rough-- I think a lot of people think you have to be delicate in cooking, but you don't.

That's why pastry chefs are usually men, because they're great, big, strong people.

I got this...

This...

I did some work in a restaurant doing some pastry, and they all used this kind of a rolling pin.

I got it at a hotel supply store for five dollars.

It's wonderful.

It's heavy enough so it does the work.

Now, you've gotten your dough so that it's malleable but still firm, and then you take it and you roll it a little bit to get it going, like that.

And then you flour your board.

And then you just start rolling.

You don't start at the very edge and you don't come up to the very edge there.

You keep turning it all the time.

The important thing is that you don't want... you don't want the edges to get thinner than the rest.

So that's why you keep... that's why you stop at the edge and you keep turning, because you don't want your dough to stick.

If it sticks, you're really sunk.

It's an awful mess.

So you can keep putting a little bit of flour on, like that.

I'm going to roll it about an eighth of an inch thick.

That's just about it.

And I'm going to line it with this.

Now, this is a wonderful French tart arrangement.

It's just a plain circle like that, and you put it on a buttered pastry sheet.

And then you put your dough in it and when the shell is done, you just lift it off and then you can slide your quiche off onto your serving platter.

I'm going to do this to show you how good it is.

If you have a handy husband, he can probably make you one of these out of aluminum or something.

Now, this has been buttered-- I'll butter it, just to show.

That's to be buttered.

And then you take your dough and roll it back on your pin like that.

And if you have any flour on it, you can just brush it off.

This is a Japanese paintbrush.

Then you just roll it back on your tin like that.

Then you want to make the edges of the dough a little bit thicker than the sides.

So you lift it up like that and push it down-- you want to be pushing in about a quarter of an inch.

See, I'm lifting it and pushing like that.

If it's a hot day and you've got a lot of butter in your flour, you've got to work awfully quickly.

But if you find at any time that your dough's getting too hard to handle, just stick the whole thing like this in the icebox for ten or 15 minutes.

Now I've got that all pushed down and we just take our rolling pin and roll over it like that.

And then any leftover dough-- I didn't roll it quite far enough, that doesn't make a difference-- any leftover dough you just knead into a little thing and put back in wax paper.

I was going a little too fast there.

Now, you push it up a little bit.

See what I'm doing?

I'm pushing it up with my thumbs and my fingers and also pressing it closely against the edge.

I think this edge is a little bit thin there, and so what I do is just take a little piece of the dough and wet it and just patch it.

You can do patching any time.

That needs a little more around there.

Then, you will have to, because this is going to be pre-baked, you don't want the bottom to rise.

So you take a very thin-pronged fork and make little holes like that in it.

Just little pricks to it.

That prevents it from rising.

And now, if you baked it just like this, as soon as it got into the oven, the sides would all collapse.

You have to weight it down.

And this is a very simple system.

There's foil, and a little package of foil in there-- it's just some old, dry beans in it.

You just put that in.

I've had these beans for years-- it's a mixture of navy beans and chickpeas-- and they just keep indefinitely.

But when you're doing this, be sure that you get this close up against the edge like that.

There.

Then, we're going to bake it.

It goes into a 425 oven, and it's going to bake for about five minutes.

It's along with our quiche in there.

And then we'll take the foil out and it'll bake about two or three minutes more.

Now, I want to give you the proportions for this dough, which I forgot to, because if you're taking notes, you'll want to know them.

That was two cups of all-purpose flour and one stick, or one quarter-pound, of butter, three tablespoons of white vegetable shortening, five to six tablespoons of water, one-half teaspoon of salt, and one-eighth teaspoon of sugar.

And then the mold goes into a 425 oven for five minutes, and then we take out the foil and beans and it cooks again for about three minutes.

Now, if you don't have a French quiche ring, you can use a false-bottom pie tin.

See?

Line them... line the mold with this, and then when you're ready to unmold the tart, you do like that, and then you take your tart off.

Sometimes it's a little bit difficult to get it off the bottom, but that doesn't make any difference-- you can still put it on your plate and cut the quiche.

So... We'll do the same thing with this-- butter it thoroughly.

Then roll out our dough.

I've got some more hard dough here.

This one would have softened up too much to use.

So we beat it again.

See, it's a wonderful... wonderful to have a big, heavy thing like this.

Now we roll it out again, as you remember... Not coming quite to the edge all around.

I'm rolling it out to about an eighth of an inch.

And remember always that you keep lifting the dough and turning it.

There.

Just roll all around.

This is getting a little sticky, so I should have a little bit of flour there.

There.

Now, here's another way of putting the flour into the tin.

Just fold it over that way and that way, and there you are.

And, again, it gets... pressed down the sides.

That's to make the edges thicker.

Then roll off the excess.

This time I'll be sure it doesn't stick, so I'll use the knife, too.

There.

Now, push up.

There.

Now, prick.

Prick the bottom.

You want to be careful not to make the holes too big.

And then, instead of using the foil and beans, you can use another pan that'll just fit in like that.

There.

And that will be enough weight.

Now, I'll show you how to make some quiche mixtures.

I think I'll get rid of my rolling pin here because I'm not going to need that again.

Wipe off a little.

Now, a quiche mixture... it's sort of a universal mix.

The general mixture is, for an eight- to ten-inch tart, is three eggs and one-and-a-half to two cups of either heavy cream, if you're feeling that you don't have to go on to a diet, or light cream, or you can use just milk.

And I'm going to do several various things, so I'm going to make a universal mix using five eggs, which I just beat up.

And then I'm going to use two cups of a mixture of cream and milk.

And then flavor it up with some...

I can get rid of this flour, too.

I'm going to put in some salt.

This will be about... that's almost a quart, so I'll use about half a teaspoon of salt.

And a good sprinkling of freshly ground pepper.

And a little bit of nutmeg.

This is a nice thing, this nutmeg holder.

I found it at our hardware store.

There, you've got your nutmeg in there, you just scrape it in.

You want just a little bit, not too much, because any time you use flavoring, it shouldn't be overpowering.

And then all you need to do is just to beat this up.

These wire whips are awfully useful.

You just need to beat it up enough so that the eggs and milk are thoroughly mixed.

There.

And now, with that basic mixture, you can do anything you want.

I'm going to do the quiche lorraine now.

And this is bacon, this is just ordinary bacon-- I bought it in a chunk and then sautéed it just a little bit to get the main oil out of it and so that it has... just a little bit crisp.

(oven buzzer goes off) Ah, now that may be our tart shell done.

Our quiche is coming along nicely.

As you can see, it's puffing up beautifully.

Now, the tart shell...

I'll just leave that oven open a minute.

Now here you take out your lining.

And see, this is set.

And if you see that it's come down a little bit here, you can just push it up with your finger, because it's still soft.

That often happens, but once it's set and you've pushed it up, it won't sink down any more.

And then prick it again just a little bit and then set it back, and then you set it back in the oven for two or three minutes.

I shan't go on with it that way.

And now... there we've got our bacon in, and then you just pour your mixture in.

And you only want it to come up to about two-thirds, because it's going to puff.

And then you would bake this at 375.

And you can also... there are all sorts of other things that you can use-- spinach and you can use lobster, which you would just warm a little bit of butter and put some cognac and salt and pepper on it, then put it in the bottom of your quiche shell and pour on your universal mixture.

Now, I think our quiche is ready, so I'm going to take a look at it.

And to tell how it's done...

I'll bring it over here so you can see it.

You push your fork into it and if the fork comes out clean, it's done.

It is done.

You see, the fork is clean.

So we unmold it.

You can see how nice it is to have these rings.

There.

That just comes off.

Then... You just have a big spatula and you slide it onto your serving platter, and there you are.

That looks lovely, and it smells so good, I must say.

Now it's time to serve it.

You'll notice that, as you look at it while it's on the dining table, it is puffed and then it gradually sinks down a little bit.

And it never will come up again to this height, but it's always perfectly good to cook it ahead of time.

We're having...

This is going to be the first course for a supper party.

We're having quiche, and then we're following that with a perfectly delicious French chicken.

And we're having rosé wine.

And I'm going to cut this quiche so you can see how it is.

You just cut it right down, like a pie.

Now, one reason that we pre-baked this shell is that so you don't have a soggy bottom crust.

If you put the quiche mixture into a unbaked shell, the bottom crust would be soggy, and that's horrible, I think.

That's why so many people are always cutting, just scraping the pie off the bottom shell.

Now this, you see, it holds nicely and it's lovely to eat and it smells very good.

I want to review what we did about that pastry dough.

You remember you did it with your hands, and then we mixed in the water and then we did this French motion of pushing it out with our hand, like that.

And then wrapped it in a ball and chilled it until it was firm.

And then, remember, when you're lining your pie mold to make the edges of the pastry a little bit thicker so that the quiche will stay together.

Now, if you practice on these pie shells, our next show is going to be fruit tarts, in which we use the same kind of a shell.

So be sure and practice on them.

And this is all for this time.

This is Julia Child.

Bon appétit.

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