King Charles III has officially unveiled his signature coronation offering, which is to be served at the palace’s Big Lunch event on May 7, and various community events and street parties across coronation weekend.
The pastry-encrusted egg dish is peppered with notes of spinach, broad beans, cheese and tarragon, though Buckingham Palace chef Mark Flanagan says people wanting to bake their own can easily make adjustments to their liking.
Charles, Camilla and Flanagan settled on the idea of quiche because it’s a convenient “sharing” dish, and can be served hot or cold.
For a variety of reasons, the coronation quiche has fallen flat among punters, becoming something of a viral laughing stock online.
Perhaps the most obvious criticism, at least to locals, is a well-reported egg shortage in the UK, with production at its lowest level in over a decade, the Guardian reports.
Almost a billion fewer eggs were packed in 2022 compared to 2019 after producers were hit by rising costs and a catastrophic outbreak of avian influenza (bird flu).
Punters hitting supermarkets to stock up on ingredients for the coronation quiche took to Twitter to point out the glaring problem:
Aside from supply issues, others didn’t feel egg pie screamed jubilation.
For the Queen’s coronation, famed culinary school Le Cordon Bleu London created the Coronation Chicken, which featured cooked chicken meat in a creamy curry sauce with dried apricots. It was served with a simple salad.
At the time the dish was considered rather astounding, given many of the ingredients weren’t pantry staples and the country was still under post-war restrictions.
It’s evolved slightly over the years per people’s preferences and is now commonly served on a brioche bun and sprinkled with various trimmings from crisp coconut chips, to sultanas and mangetout.
With that, let’s celebrate literal history being made the way Charles wants it. You all get quiches. Recipe below.
Coronation quiche recipe:
Pastry
125g plain flour
Pinch of salt
25g cold butter, diced
25g lard
2 tablespoons milk
Or 1 x 250g block of ready-made shortcrust pastry
Filling
125ml milk
175ml double cream
2 medium eggs
1 tablespoon chopped fresh tarragon
Salt and pepper
100g grated cheddar cheese
180g cooked spinach, lightly chopped
60g cooked broad beans or soya beans
Method
1. To make the pastry: sieve the flour and salt into a bowl; add the fats and rub the mixture together using your finger tips until you get a sandy, breadcrumb-like texture. Add the milk a little at a time and bring the ingredients together into a dough.
Cover and allow to rest in the fridge for 30-45 minutes.
2. Lightly flour the work surface and roll out the pastry to a circle a little larger than the top of the tin and approximately 5mm thick.
3. Line the tin with the pastry, taking care not to have any holes or the mixture could leak. Cover and rest for a further 30 minutes in the fridge.
4. Preheat the oven to 190C.
5. Line the pastry case with greaseproof paper, add baking beans and bake blind for 15 minutes, before removing the greaseproof paper and baking beans.
6. Reduce the oven temperature to 160C.
7. Beat together the milk, cream, eggs, herbs and seasoning.
8. Scatter half of the grated cheese in the blind-baked base, top with the chopped spinach and beans and herbs, then pour over the liquid mixture.
9. If required gently give the mixture a delicate stir to ensure the filling is evenly dispersed but be careful not to damage the pastry case.
10. Sprinkle over the remaining cheese. Place into the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes until set and lightly golden.
