How to make Bacon and Egg Pie

In New Zealand if someone says to you ‘Would you like a pie?” or even a piece of pie,  they will be talking about a savoury pie – meat pies, chicken pies or bacon and egg pies and the whole gamut of concoctions in between. A pie has pastry on the bottom and the top  and usually a stew like filling, making a hot parcel of deliciousness. Usually they are small single serve pies and will be piping hot and bought at bakeries, corner stores or service stations where they sit drying out for hours in a special pie oven and then eaten using the brown paper bag as a holder and crumb catcher. Perfick.

In Auckland Airport  the last eatery before the gate sells Pies. We love them so much that when we leave home we leave with the taste of rich hot heavy gravy in our mouths with gold flakes of hot pastry clinging to our lips like treasure.

If someone in the US says do you want pie? They will mean a very sweet concoction like banana cream, or key lime or coconut something.  These are sweet and usually creamy like cheese cake. But without the cheese. I cannot eat the American Pie, I am not a dessert person but I am sure that some of them are quite divine. They are simply called Pie. Would you like to come in and have some Pie? They would say.

Apple Pie on the other hand is just called Apple Pie, everywhere.

So, now that we have the semantics of pie and pies out of the way, here is how to make a Bacon and Egg pie. And no I was a good girl and did not spend hours in the kitchen for you as I had already made one the other day. I just lay about on the couch and wrote it for you.

Oh, look! I just happen to have one prepared.

Bacon and Egg Pie is usually for lunch or a light supper and is served in slices with a salad.

Bacon and Egg pie. 

Line a pie dish (or in this case a roasting pan) with pastry. Here is the recipe I use. It makes a lovely pate brisee, very close to the regular old pie crust that is used for good old mince and cheese pie in NZ (mince is ground beef) but without the fancy name. I make my pastry in small batches in my small food processor because I HATE the big Kenwood one I have, HATE IT, so many parts you would not believe. And if I make the pastry in smaller batches then it is mixed, pushed into a ball, wrapped and back in the fridge before it even realises it has been morphed into pastry.   And all the ingredients stay cold.

Then onto the lower pie crust I sprinkle a thinly sliced raw onion. Then cover the bottom with freshly cubed and pan fried bacon, don’t be stingy. (Though I fry the bacon first to get most of the fat out.)  Then sprinkle with frozen peas and parsley.

Now add your eggs one at a time until the above ingredients are covered in eggs. See below.  I used  10 eggs in this one. Shake the pan slightly so the eggs ooze over all the other ingredients in a most undignified fashion.

Then take a spoon and gently muddle the egg yolks in. Not mixing, just kind of introducing the yolk to the white. This is what makes this bacon and egg pie special,  in our family we do not mix the eggs first. We crack them straight into the pie. We give the egg white a voice of its own.   Grind pepper all over the surface and a little salt if you like.

Cover  and seal with another layer of your pastry. Brush with egg white for shine and lightly sprinkle with a little rock salt.

Bake at 375 for about 40 minutes.

There now.

Yesterday was a grim, overcast drizzly day that murmured along like a muddy stream without much volume at all. John drove to the airport in the late afternoon to pick up his son, home on furlough.  So I carefully pulled on my clown suit, picked up my shepherds crook, told Boo to stay inside and mind his Baby as he is just too jumpy for me at the moment and prepared to do the slowest round of chores in the western world, John had put every thing up high for me so there was to be no bending.

Then out of the misty gloom came my favourite neighbour with bags of stale buns and odd bits of out of date pieces from the food pantry where she works,  for the pigs.  She was shocked to hear I had come a cropper. So we teamed up and got everyone fed without any problems at all.

How was that for perfect timing! Must be the Fellowship Bubble at work again.

Have a lovely day.

Your friend,

celi