Note that I tend to make the filling whilst the pastry is cooking.

Wholemeal Pastry

• Grease your fluted tart tin, making sure you get into the fluted edges. Using a pastry brush can be useful for this.
• Fit the blade attachment to your food processor and then add your flour and salt and whizz for a few seconds until combined. Or mix by hand in a mixing bowl.
• Spread your cubed butter over the flour mixture and mix until sandlike. Give the bowl a shake midway to ensure all of the flour at the base is incorporated.
• Add your egg yolk and 4 tablespoons of very cold water, and pulse your food processor until the mixture starts to clump together into balls. You may need to add another tablespoon of cold water to achieve this (I usually do).
• Tip your pastry out onto your worksurface and bring it together into a ball. Knead it just 2-3 times so that it fully sticks together.
• Flatten the dough out until it is about an inch thick and then cover with cling film and refridgerate for 30 minutes.
The longer you can leave your pastry in the fridge, the better it will handle and also the better the flavour.
• Heat your oven to 180°C /160°C Fan/350°F/Gas mark 4.
• Lightly flour your work surface and roll the dough out into a circle about 5 mm thick. Drape it over your quiche tin.
• Hold the edge of your pastry vertically with one hand and with the other gently press it into the base of the tin, pushing it gently into the fluted sides. If it is a bit thinner in some places, then just wet the back of a bit of spare pastry and stick it over the thin part. Nobody will ever know! Make sure you push the pastry into the join between the sides and the tin and base.
• Take your rolling pin and run it over the top of the tin so that it cuts off the excess pastry and gives you a nice. neat finish.
• Prick the pastry base all over with a fork so that it doesn’t balloon up when baked.
If this part of the process takes longer than expected and your pastry warms up, make sure you refridgerate it again for 10 minutes or so. Warm pastry will shrink when baked.
• Cover the pastry with foil, making sure the sides are totally covered. Then tip in your baking beans, or uncooked dry rice. Enough to fully cover the base and hold the foil down so that the pastry does not fluff up.
• Place the quiche tin on a baking tray and bake for 15 minutes.
• Tip out the baking beans, or rice, and remove the foil.
• Return to the oven and bake uncovered for another 15-20 minutes until the pastry is coming away from the sides of the tin and it is just beginning to brown.

Bacon and Mushroom Quiche Filling

• Remove the rind from your bacon and set it aside. Cut the bacon into pieces of approximately 3 centimetres each.
• Thinly slice your onion and slice up your chestnut mushroom quite thickly.
• Heat your olive oil on a medium-high setting for a few minutes and then add your bacon and rind.
• Fry on medium-high until the bacon starts to brown, keep moving it around as it cooks. You don't want the bacon too browned because it becomes quite tough.
• Remove your bacon to a piece of kitchen paper to soak up the excess fat.m. Leave the rind in the pan.
• Add your sliced onion and thyme sprigs to your pan and fry on a high setting until the onion browns and caramelises, this will take about 5 minutes.
• Again, place the onion and thyme onto a piece of kitchen paper to soak off the excess fat. Remove the thyme sprigs and gently pick off any remaining thyme leaves and add them to the onion. Discard the stalks.
• Turn the heat down to medium-high and add your mushrooms. Fry them until browned around the edges. Again, don't overcook them.
• Place the cooked mushrooms on a piece of kitchen paper to soak off the fat.
• Beat your eggs together with your double (heavy) cream, 2½ tablespoons of your chopped chives and about 4 good grinds of black pepper (no need to add extra salt, the filling will be salted from the bacon and cheese).
• Mix in two thirds of your grated cheese.
• Mix your bacon, onion, thyme leaves and mushrooms together and then place them in your baked pastry case.
• Pour over your egg mixture, making sure the cheese is evenly spread out
• Sprinkle the remaining cheese over the top of your quiche, and then sprinkle 2 tablespoons of chopped chives over the top.
• Bake in the centre of your oven for 35-40 minutes until your quiche is golden on top, and when you peel a little topping back from the centre, you can see that it is set in the middle.
• Leave to cool and set for 10 minutes in the tin, and then remove from the tin and serve.
• Serve with a good salad and new potatoes in butter.