Mince, Croissants and Quiche

Okay, so I have been gone for rather a long time, and to get things restarted I thought I would just jump in and ramble for a bit.

Mince and Dumplings

I was rewatching an old Hairy Bikers program and was reminded of this recipe.  As with all such recipes, I tried a modified version.  I was trying to keep things cheap, so I avoided a couple of ingredients.  I did not use celery, but then again, I hate cooked celery, so it may have been that, more than the expense.  Strangely for me, I did use onions.  I chopped them very finely and then cooked them down to the point they basically disappeared.  Unfortunately, I also did not want dumplings, so I served it over potatoes.  The biggest problem was that I did not pay attention when I grabbed a can of tomato paste and I ended up with tomato paste with tomato pesto in it.  So, it ended up a bit Italian tasting, rather than good old British.  It was good, but I need to try it again.

Croissants

I spent two years in France and I like a good Croissant.  I have now tried Croissants from a variety of places in Austin, Texas and I thought I would offer a few opinions.  First, a list of the contestants.

• Upper Crust Bakery (4508 Burnet Rd)
• Texas French Bread (2900 Rio Grande)
• Central Market-North (4001 N. Lamar Blvd)
• Phoenicia Bakery-South (2912 S Lamar Blvd)
• Phoenicia Bakery-North (4701a Burnet Rd)

From all but Upper Crust, I bought a Croissant, often called a Butter Croissant, and a Petit Pain au Chocolat.  For those who do not know, a Petit Pain is a Croissant with a semi-sweet chocolate bar baked inside it.  Both are common in France.  At Upper Crust I bought a slice of quiche, more on that later.

A croissant should be flaky and airy.  Buttery is something that American bakers like, but it is not necessarily part of the French croissant experience.  Three of the five met this fundamental criteria, Phoenicia South, Central Market and Upper Crust.  The Upper Crust croissant was just the slightest bit dense, so it finishes third, but I cannot really make up my mind between the Phoenicia South and Central Market croissants, both were excellent.  The Texas French Bread croissant made me wonder if the baker knew the difference between a croissant and a loaf of bread.  It was overly dense, and rather heavy, which is not at all a good quality in a croissant.  The Phoenicia north croissant was flat.  There is really no other way to say it.  It was a little on the greasy side, which is a potential problem of the Butter Croissant, but it seemed like the baker did not use enough leavening in his dough.  I am not sure.

All of them tasted good, but texture is important in a croissant, and only three came close on the texture.  So, if you want a good croissant in north Austin, head over to Central Market, and in south Austin, Phoenicia Bakery.

If you have any suggestions, please leave me a comment, I will be happy to try more croissants.

Quiche

I have been thinking about making quiche, and when I stopped at Upper Crust and saw Ham and Cheese Quiche, I could not resist, even though it was rather more than I wanted to pay.  I was rather disappointed.  There was nothing wrong with it, but it tasted a bit bland.  First, I think it was the choice of Ham over Bacon, which is what I like to use in a quiche.  Bacon has a bit more zing, which stands out in the blandness of the Egg.  Then, it occurred to me that I could not really taste the cheese.  It was very disappointing.

I hope to be back regularly from now on.