Chicory, cheese and bacon quiche

‘Real men don’t eat quiche’ was the title of a 1982 book on masculine stereotypes, which only shows that not many men are ‘real’ in the red-neck sense of beef eating, beer swigging misogynists.

Valentine’s Day (named after two martyrs called Valentine, killed on the same day by the same Roman emperor but in different years) is also a stereotype, a pagan celebration closely related to Carnival that has over the centuries morphed into a commercial cornucopia in the name of love.

I have to confess to buying red roses for my wife and I made a “love” dish. In Dutch, chicory is called “lof” which is pronounced like love. I added Camembert cheese and cubes of smoked bacon.

 Ingredients

• Six chicory
• One round pastry dough
• One Camembert cheese
• 200 grammes of smoked bacon cubes
• Butter (optional)
• Pepper, salt

 Steps

1. Preheat the oven to 200 °C.
2. Clean the chicory and slice them in rounds of one centimetre. Remove the outer leaves and the tough white bits at the stem. Cook for 20 minutes in a pan with salted water.
3. Roll out the dough in a round baking tin, put baking paper on the bottom or coat lightly with butter. Make sure the dough as a rim around the sides.
4. Drain the cooked chicory and let it cool down a bit.
5. Put the chicory in the dough form, add sliced cheese and sprinkle the bacon cubes. Add pepper to taste.
6. Put in the oven for 20 minutes, check the colour of the pastry and continue for another 5 to 10 minutes if needed for a nice light brown (sand) colour.