Full episode: https://bit.ly/bbcml-cfbcLF87
Pierre Koffmann demonstrates how to make a traditional Quiche Lorraine from scratch. From preparing the pastry to baking the final dish, he shares the techniques that give this classic its rich flavour and perfect texture.
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32 Comments
Thank you Pierre
The cookery school sat behind a florist in Marylebone, where the bell above the door rang with the tired politeness of a minor hotel. Inside, the kitchen was made for closeness: one long oak table, two neat rows of stools, copper pans polished for display, and an extractor hood that sighed like an old man settling.
Pierre Koffmann stood at the head of the table, hands on a folded cloth, a white jacket softened by years. His voice was low, precise. He asked the room to lean in, which was useful. A chef could hover, correct, watch. People forgave it.
They arrived in pairs and singles: a young couple who touched wrists as if testing affection; a City man with a watch that looked punitive; an older woman with a notebook poised like a charge sheet; two bloggers with phones on little tripods. Ten, as Pierre had insisted. Ten was readable.
The last attendee arrived exactly on time, which is to say at the moment that imposed itself while remaining defensible. She was plain, dark-coated, hair pinned with discipline. No bag, only a slim folder. She gave the receptionist one name, calmly: Anna. Then she chose the stool nearest the corridor door and placed her folder on the table as if it were something she might need to reach quickly.
Smiley, inside Pierre, watched her hands first. Nails short. A faint callus on the inside of the right index finger, as if from holding something thin and hard. A small scar on a knuckle. No ring, but a pale band where one had been.
He began, as Pierre, with eggs and pastry.
“Quiche is simple,” he told them. “Simple things punish you if you are lazy.”
Flour, cold butter, salt. He demonstrated with fingertips, not palms. “You are not making bread,” he said. “You are not fighting.” A professional smile, a small permission to laugh.
Anna worked with an economy that did not belong to hobby cooking. She kept her head up, listened to the room more than to his words, cut butter into flour with lightness and speed. Not pastry practice, he thought. Another kind.
First tell came with her eyes. While others admired copper pans and cookbook photographs, hers measured exits: corridor door, street-facing window, mirrored splashback behind the stove. A habit of the hunted, or the trained.
Second tell arrived as sound. From the corridor: a soft click, a measured tread, then a pause. The door handle moved a fraction, tested. Smiley did not turn. He lifted a rolling pin, making a show of weighing it.
“Rolling,” he said, a touch louder, “is persuasion, not force.”
He let the pin knock a spoon. The spoon clattered loudly. Heads turned. In the mirrored splashback, he caught a blurred face at the corridor glass, cap pulled low. It vanished at once.
He moved on to blind baking, the dried beans in a jar, the calm instructions. While he spoke, he rearranged objects on the table with culinary fussiness that also narrowed sightlines from the corridor window. Flour bag here, bowls there, recipe cards stacked. Nobody questioned it. Anna watched the rearrangement, eyes narrowing, as if she saw the seam between cooking and something else.
They rendered lardons. The pan hissed and the air grew warm with bacon and salt. Conversation loosened.
Then a phone, somewhere, flashed. Not random, but regular, as if on a timer. One blogger glanced down, apologetic, thumb already moving. Her phone lay face down on the wood, not on a tripod, not displayed. Smiley drifted close, corrected her chopping, and brushed the phone edge with the back of his hand. It was warm, as if running continuously.
Third tell, he counted, and disliked the certainty.
A false lead followed, because false leads always did. The receptionist admitted a delivery man carrying cream, late and over-friendly, cap low, wiping his nose with his wrist. He smiled too widely at Pierre, seeking approval. Smiley gave it because Pierre would, and because an old spy had no right to accuse every tired worker. The delivery man left. The corridor door clicked shut.
Custard: eggs, cream, a pinch of nutmeg. “Do not drown it,” Pierre warned. “Quiche is not a bath.” They poured, arranged lardons, scattered Gruyère. Smiley performed normality with the same care he had once performed lies.
When the quiches went into the oven, the room relaxed into harmless chatter. Smiley washed his hands slowly, using the mirrored splashback to take the room in: shoulders, glances, who leaned toward whom, who stayed apart.
Anna stayed apart. She opened her folder and slid out one sheet, placed it flat, covered it with her hand. She did not read it. She waited.
Smiley moved along the table offering small corrections. When he reached her, she looked up.
“Chef,” she said, and there was neutrality in it, the way you address someone who might also be dangerous. “You touch your glasses when you are thinking.”
His fingers rose toward the frame, stopped, fell. “Old men have habits,” he said.
“And histories,” she replied.
She slid the paper toward him, keeping it hidden until the last moment. It looked like a recipe card. Cream. Eggs. Flour. At the bottom, in different handwriting, one line:
Still in the drawer.
“Is this a threat?” Smiley asked quietly, Pierre’s voice, Pierre’s face.
“It is information,” she said. “From someone who remembers you.”
“In my former organisation,” he said.
She gave a small shrug. “In yours. In theirs. In the overlap.”
The oven timer rang. The class stirred, smiling as if the world were purely edible. Smiley held the card as if reading ingredients.
“Why here?” he asked.
“Because here is noise,” she said. “Because nobody suspects a chef. Because you will not run.”
“And you?” he asked.
“I leave,” she said, folding gloves over her palms with slow care. “You decide whether you are still retired.”
“Who are you?” he asked, because he could not help it.
“I am nobody,” she said. “That is the point.”
She went out. The bell rang. The street took her.
Smiley pulled the quiches from the oven, tops browned to applause. “Rest them,” he told the class. “Five minutes. Always.” They leaned in with knives, tasting comfort.
After they left, he cleaned with the thoroughness of a man tidying after a crime: counters wiped, pans washed, knives counted without seeming to count. He put on his coat and walked to the Underground, choosing a seat with sightlines, watching reflections in the dark window.
At home, the flat was modest and careful. A kitchen for Pierre. Books chosen not to speak too loudly. A small desk with a drawer, because drawers were inevitable.
He stood before it, hand hovering, then opened it.
What caught him was not what lay inside, but what did not. A small object, hidden beneath old letters, was gone. Not valuable in money. Valuable in memory.
On top of the letters sat a single dried bean, pale and ordinary, the kind he had used to blind bake the pastry. A dot of punctuation.
He closed the drawer softly, as if not to wake the room. In the kitchen, the smell of quiche clung on, warm and domestic, belonging to someone else. He touched his glasses once before he stopped himself.
Outside, in the city, a bell rang above a door, and the world continued its practice of pretending.
You know.
Health food for the anorexic person in your life.
Your posts are excellent. Thak you Chef.
Beautiful❤
arretez avec ce doublage son de merde !! au bout de 3sec je quitte deja la video ! autant rien mettre
J’ai faim !
Speaking english language should be forbidden to french people.
Beautiful. There are so many disappointing quiche Lorraine attempts all over the world, often in "French" bistros outside of France where they sell some boring jars of rillettes and have posters of Amélie on the walls… The extreme creaminess that barely holds together but it still does, that's what a quiche Lorraine should be like.
I think this venerable gentleman may be the single most French-sounding person I've ever heard speak.
"You know" counter: 25
Absolute legend ❤
That pastry recipe calls for an extra ingredient – a bit of flour.
A chef for chefs.❤😮😮
i love this guy
Some people use scissors to cut the cartouche, Pierre doesn´t
I love this dear old chef. So genteel and classic.
Took it out of the oven with hes bare hands then says be careful when taking it out because its hot xD legend
Very good. However, I saw a TV show where an lady from Lorraine prepared this thing, but added "surtout pas de fromage!"
So now I know what's missing from my quiche. That pastry looks amazing.
I had the joy of meeting this great man some years ago, after eating at his restaurant. He was as charming and self-effacing as he is in these videos. I have total respect and adore his masterclasses. Merci Chef.
Needs some English mustard
Close to perfect! The only thing missing was a hot pizza stone for that crispy base
sensational
Why on earth make so much more pastry than he needs? White flour, a mountain of butter, salt in the pastry, salt in the custard, salt in the cheese, salt in the bacon – which itself was about 50% fat…traditional or not, I wouldn't eat it if you paid me.
My mom has made quiches my whole life, but this looks like it would melt in my mouth. I sent her this video!
Lovely, chef! Going to make that this week. Merci!
wt is he saying
Et voilà
Ok we get it "You know" is your favorite phrase. Damn
We call in Zwiebelkuchen in Germany.
So we called supermarkets; bastards, and we use marajuana cheese 🤣