Foragers Diary; Weed Quiche

Redshanks and fat hen (also known as lambsquarters) are commonly classed as agricultural weeds in the UK but can be used as a wonderful ingredient in a quiche or as just as greens in their own right. In fact for those who aren't keen on the greens these two wild foods don't even taste like greens they have a somewhat meaty quality.  They are going to be the wild ingredients in this 'weed quiche'.

A typical redshank plant, with it's pink seeds; the leaves are what you will need for this recipe.

Young fat hen plants, if you are familiar with Quinoa you will notice similarities between these two plants as quinoa is a cultivated variety of  fat hen.
Picture courtesy by Anneli Salo (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

You can add a variety of other wild ingredients to this quiche such as chick weed, nettles, sow thistles etc.. but for the basic recipe is as follows;

Pastry

200 grams of plain flour

100 grams of unsalted butter

2 tablespoons water (ish)

pinch of salt

Make the pastry first and allow it to cool in the fridge before rolling it out placing it in the dish to bake. In the meantime prepare the quiche mixture. 

Quiche mixture 

2 eggs

250 ml cream or milk

cheese

onion

wild ingredients 

salt and pepper

Chop the onion and wild greens (about the quantity shown above, so about two double handfuls) then soften them in the frying pan with a knob of butter but don't let them start to go brown. 

Beat the eggs, milk and about two handfuls of grated cheese together and once you have added the greens and onion to the now baked pastry pour the egg mixture over the top to cover it.

ten to fifteen minutes in the oven and this is the finished article

and for the authentic wild food experience you have to eat it outside

Hope you enjoy it