Butternut Squash Mini-Quiche with homemade Pecorino Crust

This is a new spin on an old recipe of mine, the Butternut squash and pecorino quiche. 

I made a salty shortbread crust using grated pecorino cheese. And then I decided to make them bite size, for the joy of my fiancé!

Ingredients for a life time supply of mini quiche:

THE FILLING
1 butternut squash
1 cup of grated pecorino
1/2 an onion chopped finely
2 eggs
1tbsp butter, 2 cups milk and 2 tbsp of flour for the Bechamel Sauce


1. Clean the squash (long and painful procedure, buy it clean if you don't have the patience), cut it in little flat pieces and put it in the oven, where it will cook at 300F for about 20 minutes. You know it's cooked when you can squish it down with a fork.

2. Make it into a puree (I used the food processor) and while you do that let the onion cook in a pan with a little bit of butter. Once the onion is transparent and looks cooked, throw in the squash and mix it well.

3. Add the béchamel and half of the pecorino but leave some on the side to put later on top of the quiches.

FOR THE SHORTBREAD PECORINO CRUST:
300 gr (3cups) flour
1 whole egg
2 yokes
170 gr of butter (2 sticks)
30 gr of grated pecorino (half a cup)

1.Mix all the dry ingredients together, add the butter and start making little crumbs with your hands.

2. Add the eggs and work the dough till smooth. Let it rest in the fridge for 30 minutes.

3. Flatten the dough with a roller pin. I like my crust thin and crispy, it also cooks better if it has stuff on top of it. With a round cookie cutter cut out your circles and put them on a muffin tin. With your hands give it the shape of the bottom of the tin, so that the edges rise up a little.

WE ARE READY FOR THE FILLING!
I tried putting just a little bit of filling or A LOT of filling and both were fully cooked and delicious, so it's up to you to decide! Sprinkle some pecorino on top.

Bake for 20 minutes, oven set to 350 F, or until the edges appear to be golden brown. Once they're cooked let them rest for a minute (the shortbread has to harden) and then scoop them out of the tin with a fork.

Enjoy!
Valentina
RealItalianKitchen