I didn’t understand leeks when I was growing up; in fact, I never ate them. It took living in France for me to fall for them.
This Leek Quiche recipe, from my cookbook “V Is for Vegetables,” was not only the first thing I learned in cooking school in Paris; it was also part of my final “exam.” I had to make it under the close scrutiny of the chefs. So you’d better believe I take leeks seriously.
Leeks are the mildest of the indispensable onion family, less pungent than garlic and shallots, richer and more discreet when cooked. We do not eat them raw, but they soften quickly, and as they warm, their deliciousness is revealed. Leeks are easy to use. Make sure to wash them thoroughly (soil lodges in their tight layers).
This quiche has three distinctive components: the dough, the filling and the egg mixture, good things to perfect! It's delicious for breakfast and lunch at home with any number of filling variations: mushrooms, spinach, onions and so on. The tart comes together pretty quickly if you make the dough in advance. You’ll only need the white and pale green leek parts for the quiche, so save the dark greens for stock.
Servings: 1 (10-inch) quiche
TART DOUGH
1 ¾ cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
9 tablespoons butter, cubed and chilled
1 egg yolk
Up to 4 tablespoons ice water
FILLING
4 tablespoons (½ stick) butter, plus more for the pan
3 large leeks (white and pale green parts), diced
1 large clove garlic, minced
Salt and pepper
Small handful fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped
Flour (for the pan and rolling the dough)
½ cup whole milk
½ cup heavy cream
2 eggs
1 egg yolk
Pinch grated nutmeg
Salt and pepper
¾ cup grated Parmigiano
Stir together the flour and salt in a large bowl. Add the butter and, little by little, work it into the flour with your fingertips, flattening it to create a sandy mixture. The idea is not to overwork the dough and the key is to start with cold butter and touch it with only your fingertips.
Add the yolk and 2 tablespoons of the ice water, then lightly stir and fold it in with your fingers.
Do not worry if the mixture seems too dry and like it won’t come together. Just add more water, drop by drop, until it does.
When the mixture just barely becomes a dough, transfer to a bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Refrigerate for about an hour.
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Heat the 4 tablespoons butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Sweat the leeks and garlic with salt and pepper until soft, about 10 minutes. Take off the heat and stir in the parsley, then set the leek mixture aside to cool.
Meanwhile, butter and flour a 10-inch tart pan with a removable bottom, then set it on a baking sheet. Roll out the dough on a floured surface to about 1/8 inch thick. Fit the dough into the tart pan, trim off any excess, and poke the bottom with a fork in several places to let air escape and help the dough keep its shape while cooking.
Line the tart shell with a circle of parchment paper and fill with dried chickpeas, beans, or pie weights. Bake for about 25 minutes, then remove the parchment and beans and bake until the crust is golden and cooked through, another 10 minutes.
When the tart shell is ready, whisk together the milk, cream, eggs, yolk, nutmeg, and 2 pinches each of salt and pepper. Spread the leek mixture evenly in the shell, then gently pour in the milk mixture, leaving the top of the crust exposed. Do not overfill! Top with the cheese and bake until the filling is set and golden brown, about 30 minutes. Let it sit for 10 minutes before serving.
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Michael Anthony is the executive chef-partner of Gramercy Tavern, chef-partner of Lex Yard at the Waldorf Astoria, and the author of “The Gramercy Tavern Cookbook.” He has received several James Beard Awards including Best Chef in New York City, Outstanding Chef, and a James Beard Book Award for his cookbook “V Is for Vegetables.” Prior to joining Gramercy Tavern in 2006, he was the executive chef of Blue Hill at Stone Barns.
Excerpted from “V Is for Vegetables” by Michael Anthony. Copyright (copyright) 2015 by Michael Anthony and Dorothy Kalins Ink, LLC. Used with permission of Voracious, an imprint of Little, Brown and Company. New York, NY. All rights reserved.
This book cover image released by Voracious shows "V is for Vegetables" by Michael Anthony. (Voracious via AP)
This image released by Voracious shows a recipe for leek quiche from the cookbook "V is for Vegetables" by Michael Anthony. (Voracious via AP)
This image released by Voracious shows a recipe for leek quiche from the cookbook "V is for Vegetables" by Michael Anthony. (Voracious via AP)
U.S. forces on Monday launched an effort to guide commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz, where hundreds have been stuck since the Iran war began.
Two American-flagged merchant ships have “successfully transited” through the critical waterway, the U.S. military said. Separately, the U.S. military denied Iran’s claims that it struck an American Navy vessel southeast of the strait.
Iran handed over its latest proposal for negotiations with the U.S. to mediators in Pakistan, Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported Friday. Trump subsequently said he’s “not satisfied” with it, but did not elaborate on the proposal’s apparent shortcomings. The shaky ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran has lasted for three weeks.
Here's the latest:
He announced Monday that he’ll lead a bipartisan congressional delegation on a visit to China this week, when the group of five senators will be visiting tech businesses in Shanghai and Beijing and meeting Chinese officials.
The trip will come just about a week before President Trump is scheduled to visit China for the first time since he took office. It also will be the first state visit by a U.S. president since 2017.
Traveling with Daines are fellow Republican Sens. Deb Fischer, Mike Lee and Jerry Moran as well as Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell.
As part of its National Defense Strategy announced in January — a sweeping document laying out a vision on everything from deterring China to defending against cyberattacks to disrupting Iran’s nuclear ambitions — the Trump administration said Europe must do more for its own defense.
While “we are and will remain engaged in Europe, we must — and will — prioritize defending the U.S. Homeland and deterring China,” it said.
Among other things, the document noted that Europe’s economic power, while shrinking in relative terms globally, remains significant, and said Germany’s economy alone “dwarfs that of Russia.”
“Fortunately, our NATO allies are substantially more powerful than Russia — it is not even close,” it said, noting a recent commitment among NATO allies to raise national defense spending to 5% of GDP in total, a push led by Trump.
The U.S. European Command, created in 1947 and known as EUCOM, is one of 11 combat commands within the Defense Department, and covers some 50 countries and territories.
In addition to more than 36,000 troops in Germany, Italy hosts more than 12,000 and there’s another 10,000 in the United Kingdom, according to Pentagon numbers from December.
The Pentagon has offered few details about which troops or operations would be affected in the drawdown announced Friday.
The U.S. increased its European deployment after Russia launched its full-scale war on Ukraine four years ago. NATO allies like Germany have expected for over a year that these troops would be the first to leave.
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The event in the East Room will bring together more than 130 small business owners as the president highlights his administration’s policies benefiting them.
“Our nation’s 36 million small businesses now have the confidence to hire, reinvest and expand, unleashing an historic era of sustained growth,” Small Business Administrator Kelly Loeffler said ahead of the event. “America is open for business again.”
The gathering is meant to mark this year’s National Small Business Week and the owners represent manufacturing, food production, defense, energy and retail businesses, among other areas, according to the White House.
European leaders on Monday said President Trump’s snap decision to pull thousands of U.S. troops out of Germany came as a surprise but is a fresh sign that Europe must take care of its own security.
The Pentagon announced last week that it would pull some 5,000 troops out of Germany, but Trump told reporters Saturday that “we’re going to cut way down. And we’re cutting a lot further than 5,000.”
He offered no reason for the move, which blindsided NATO, but his decision came amid an escalating dispute with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz over the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, and Trump’s anger over European allies’ reluctance to get involved in the conflict in the Middle East.
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The U.S. stock market is holding tentatively near its record heights Monday, while oil prices climb with uncertainty about when oil tankers can resume crossing the Strait of Hormuz and restore the world’s flow of crude. Dueling claims about a possible Iranian strike on a U.S. Navy vessel in the strait heightened the tensions.
The S&P 500 slipped 0.1%, coming off its latest all-time high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 216 points, or 0.4%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was up 0.1%.
The action was stronger in the oil market, where the price for a barrel of Brent crude climbed 2% to $110.37 and briefly topped $114 during the morning. Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz due to its war with the United States has kept oil tankers pent up in the Persian Gulf and away from customers worldwide. That in turn has sent the price of Brent soaring from roughly $70 per barrel before the war.
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Rubio will travel to Rome and Vatican City this week in a bid to ease rising tensions between the Trump administration and Pope Leo over U.S. policies, particularly with Iran.
The State Department said Monday that Rubio, a devout Catholic who’s visited Rome and the Vatican at least three times since becoming Trump’s top diplomat, would be in Italy on Thursday and Friday.
“Secretary Rubio will meet with Holy See leadership to discuss the situation in the Middle East and mutual interests in the Western Hemisphere” the department said. “Meetings with Italian counterparts will be focused on shared security interests and strategic alignment.”
The trip comes as Trump has criticized Pope Leo, the first American pontiff, for his stances on the Middle East and elsewhere and posting social media images likening Trump to Jesus Christ.
The disruption of the waterway has squeezed countries in Europe and Asia that depend on Persian Gulf oil and gas, raising prices far beyond the region.
Trump has promised to bring down gas prices as he faces midterm elections this year.
The U.S. has warned shipping companies they could face sanctions for paying Iran for transit of the strait. It has enacted a naval blockade on Iranian ports since April 13, telling 49 commercial ships to turn back, U.S. Central Command said Sunday. The blockade has deprived Tehran of oil revenue it needs to shore up its ailing economy.
U.S. officials have expressed hope the blockade forces Iran back to the negotiation table.
The U.S. military said Monday that two American-flagged merchant ships had successfully transited the Strait of Hormuz and Navy guided-missile destroyers in the Persian Gulf were helping to restore shipping traffic. It separately denied Iran’s claims to have struck an American Navy vessel.
The announcement came a day after U.S. President Donald Trump announced a new initiative to help guide ships through the critical waterway for global energy. Iran has effectively closed the strait since the U.S. and Israel started the war Feb. 28, rattling the global economy.
The U.S.-led Joint Maritime Information Center has advised ships to cross the strait in Oman’s waters, saying it set up an “enhanced security area.” U.S. Central Command didn’t say when the Navy ships arrived or when the merchant vessels departed.
It was unclear whether shipping companies, and their insurers, will feel comfortable taking the risk given that Iran has fired on ships in the waterway and vowed to keep doing so.
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President Donald Trump and Donald Trump Jr. step off from Marine One upon their arrival on the South Lawn of the White House, Sunday, May 3, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
President Donald Trump walks from Marine One to board Air Force One at Ocala International Airport, in Ocala Fla., Friday, May 1, 2026, after speaking at an event in The Villages, Fla. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
President Donald Trump steps off from Marine One upon his arrival at the South Lawn of the White House, Sunday, May 3, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
