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Coronation Quiche

3 years ago

I was intrigued when this recipe first came out because it was usually mentioned in a news article that claimed the Palace was tone deaf over this due to the unavailability and expense of eggs in the UK ATM. So I wondered, how many eggs does this use? Answer: two. OK, lots of cream? No, 3/4 cup. Expensive pastry? No, 3 1/2 oz butter and 3 1/2 oz of lard. Other filling ingredients were spinach, 3 1/2 oz of cheddar cheese and a tiny amount of broad/fav beans. How expensive could that be? Apparently it was costed by someone at GBP4 or about USD5. For six servings.


I was pressed for lunch ideas for today when planning our weekend menu so I thought, why not make Coronation Quiche, and see how it stacks up? So, in the spirit of scientific enquiry (I am a former professional cook and now a laboratory technician :-) ) that's was we had.


I read an article from the Washington Post where the writer claimed she made the official recipe and it was "a soggy mess". But of course, then she made a bunch of changes to the recipe and the result was delicious. I can only think she's either incompetent, or self-aggrandising, or both.


I made the official recipe, making the pastry from scratch. The only changes I made were

1- I don't have a 20cm tart tin so I used a 20cm springform pan

2- I omitted the broad beans as I dislike broad beans and they aren't in season here

3- I used frozen spinach, well squeezed

4- I used dried tarragon (amount adjusted to account for this) as fresh isn't available


How did it turn out? Pastry was crisp, filling was set. I expected the filling would set because the proportion of liquid to eggs was what I would expect from a quiche recipe, perhaps even a little eggier. It was far from "a soggy mess".


How did it taste? Inoffensive. It was pleasant, but not the flavour bomb my quiches usually are. I'd make it again for company. I really liked the pastry, that will be used again for sure.


I'm thinking the royal chef's brief was to come up with something vegetarian so most people could eat it, tasty, simple to make and not expensive, suitable for a warm weather lunch. I believe this ticks all the boxes and is not "tone deaf", as some reports have claimed.

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