Brown Rice Quiche with Chicken, Kale, and Preserved Lemons

I never thought of using brown rice as a crust until [my husband] Danny and I ate the first meal of our honeymoon in Rome,” says Shauna James Ahern, the blogger and cookbook author also known as Gluten-Free Girl. 

“We’d saved up for months and months to go there. We stepped off the plane exhausted and excited. That first meal didn’t disappoint. Danny had a dish of veal cheeks with stuffed squash blossoms. It was the first time in our life that he curled his arm around the plate and prevented me from having a bite. (The recipe is in our first cookbook because I wanted him to make it for me!) I wasn’t suffering, however. The waiter lay down a sunny-yellow quiche with brown rice as the crust.”

“I love my gluten-free pie dough recipe, which doubles as a quiche crust, but sometimes a quick brown rice quiche is really satisfying. When we’re cleaning out the refrigerator, and I find a couple of bags of cooked rice, I’m making this. With a quiche batter based on Thomas Keller’s method and the bright taste of preserved lemons, this is one of my favorite quiches.”

Feeds 8

• Neutral-tasting oil for greasing the pan (CP suggests grapeseed oil)
• 4 cups cooked brown rice, at room temperature
• 8 large eggs
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 cups milk (nondairy milk works fine here too)
• 2 cups cashew cream or 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
• Several scrapings fresh nutmeg
• 1 cup shredded roasted chicken (preferably organic)
• 1/2 bunch Lacinato kale, finely chopped (you can use any kind of kale you want)
• 1/4 cup Preserved Lemons
• 3/4 cup grated Gruyere

Preparing to bake. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Lightly grease the inside of a 9-inch springform pan.

Making the brown rice crust. Combine the rice and 2 of the eggs in a large bowl. Using your hands, smoosh them all together until you have a slightly wet pile of rice. Season with salt and pepper.

Wet your hands. Press the rice mixture into the springform pan. Your hands will be sticky with it and the rice will cling to itself at times–don’t worry. Keep working, patiently, until the rice mixture has evenly covered the bottom and halfway up the sides of the springform pan.

Put the pan on the baking sheet and slide it in the oven. Bake until the crust is set and just starting to brown, 20 to 30 minutes. Remove the crust from the oven and let it cool to room temperature.

Making the batter. Pour 1 cup of the milk, 1 cup of the cashew cream, 3 of the remaining eggs, 1/2 tablespoon of salt, and a couple of pinches of fresh nutmeg in a blender. Blend on low speed for 10 seconds. Turn up the speed to high and blend until the mixture is frothy, about 30 seconds. Pour this into the cooled quiche crust.

Layering the ingredients for the quiche. Scatter the chicken, kale, preserved lemons, and 1/2 cup of the Gruyere evenly over the bottom of the quiche crust.

Finishing the quiche. Blend the remaining ingredients for the batter in the same manner as instructed above. Pour this in to the quiche shell, taking care to cover all the ingredients. Scatter the rest of the Gruyere on top.

Baking the quiche. Bake the quiche until the eggs are firmly set and the top is browned, 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Remove the quiche from the oven and let it cool completely to room temperature before serving.

Feel like playing?

To be honest, this quiche (like all quiches) gets better every day that it is in the refrigerator. It’s worth making the day before.

If you want to serve the quiche hot, preheat the oven to 375°F. Slice the quiche into 8 pieces. Put them on a baking sheet and into the oven until they are hot, about 15 minutes.

Recipe and photo reprinted from Gluten-Free Girl Every Day by Shauna James Ahern. Copyright © 2013 by Shauna James Ahern and Daniel Ahern. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. All rights reserved.