Real Kings eat quiche: Charles and Camilla unveil coronation dish

The official dish chosen by Charles and Camilla to mark their coronations is a spinach cheese quiche, one of the King’s favourite dishes.

Charles and Camilla have announced the official coronation dish is a quiche. Picture: Getty Images.

The official dish chosen by King Charles and Queen Camilla to mark their coronations on May 6 is a quiche, which looks and tastes a lot better than its predecessor, that bizarre concoction, coronation chicken.

The special coronation quiche is to encourage families, friends and neighbours to share in street parties across the land.

Made of spinach, broad beans, cheese and tarragon the dish was designed by royal chef Mark Flanagan and can be served hot or cold, perfect for picnics or buffets.

It has a nod to Camilla’s favourite dish, roast chicken with tarragon, but is meat free. Quiche is also one of Charles’ favourite dishes.

Easily adapted to different tastes and preferences, the Coronation Quiche – featuring spinach, broad beans, cheese and tarragon – encourages you to get involved with the #CoronationBigLunch!

Click below for the full recipe. 👇https://t.co/oEnWgjCzee

— The Royal Family (@RoyalFamily) April 17, 2023

The quiche recipe is a quick and easy bake with most items in the pantry, unlike last year’s Platinum Jubilee official dish of lemon Swiss roll and amaretti trifle, which celebrated the Queen’s 70 years on the throne.

That dish, which most didn’t even attempt, took three hours of preparation, required more than 10 eggs and involved making Swiss rolls, lemon curd, St Cements jelly, amaretti biscuits, mandarin coulis, jewelled chocolate bark and custard.

In 1953 for the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth, two principals of the Cordon Bleu cookery school in London invented coronation chicken, using cold chicken and a curry cream sauce for the Queen’s banquet. But that dish has since morphed into a gluggy mayonnaise type of sandwich filling for British Airways.

Hopefully the 2023 coronation recipe quickly replaces it.

Coronation quiche recipe

Required:

1 X 20cm Flan Tin

Ingredients:

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:

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.

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.

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.

Preheat the oven to 190°C.

Line the pastry case with greaseproof paper, add baking beans and bake blind for 15 minutes, before removing the greaseproof paper and baking beans.

Reduce the oven temperature to 160°C.

Beat together the milk, cream, eggs, herbs and seasoning.

Scatter 1/2 of the grated cheese in the blind-baked base, top with the chopped spinach and beans and herbs, then pour over the liquid mixture.

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.

Sprinkle over the remaining cheese. Place into the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes until set and lightly golden.