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
The Kitchen's Garden 
98 responses to “How to make Bacon and Egg Pie”
Your lovely recipe came at a just the right time . As usual I have more eggs on hand than I will be able to use this month. Since I am one of those odd people who has never had a fondness for peas, I will saute some spinach and mushrooms with a bit of garlic in the same pan I cook the bacon in. That should be an acceptable substitute for the peas & add some nice texture. l’ll make your dough on Saturday and surprise everyone with this wonderful pie Sunday morning for brunch. A favorite French bistro of mine serves something similar to your pie in the Spring using slivered black forest ham in place of the bacon, top the eggs off with fresh roasted asperagus drizzled with a bit of decadent hollandaise sauce on top. The best part about your recipe is that there are so many ways to change it up depending on what ingredients you have on hand & your taste preferences.
Thanks for the inspiration.
My favourite recipes are ones I can play with, your version sounds just wonderful!.. c
What an interesting conversation! OK, coming from Estonia I was brought up on what Chgo John has mentioned ~ meat or cabbage/egg filled pirukad/piroshki, call them what you will – and they do look like smaller Cornish pasties [softer and more filling! often deepfried and not baked! very thin yeast dough! i find the Cornish somewhat thick-skinned and dry in comparison!]. They are ‘party food’ from Russia thru’ the Baltics thru’ to Scandinavia and Poland!! Always made for Christmas – fatty but very, very yummy!! So John, Finns yes, but not just the Finns 🙂 ! Yes, In Oz a pie IS savoury for me also – being a health ‘nut’ I won’t touch those made outside home or any sweet ones, but Celi’s pie is fresh, filling and appetizing made with homegrown ingredients and sans all the gooey ‘gravy’!!!!. DO like that raw onion at the base!!!! . . . and glad that TTT will provide with another pair of hands and some interesting tabletalk: hope he is enjoying the Services!!
he seems to have fund his niche, which is great. I must look up your little pirukad/piroshki .. they sound very tasty and i LOVE deep fried food! have a lovely evening eha.. c
Give me a couple of days ~ I’ll email you a few tested and true ones after I translate ’em 😉 !
Mmmmm….piroshki! We have Russians here in ND!!! Swedes, Norwegians, Danish, Scots, and Germans settled here. I have a fondness for ethnic foods and love the diversity here in the States! I love knishes too! And hand pies and turnovers! Pie!!!! Pie!!! So many different pies! Yum to all!!! LOL It is all in the hand of the baker as to whether they hit the spot or not! Just a little taste eh? You like yes? No? Okay. 🙂
Looks delicious. I’m amazed at seeing the raw eggs in the pie like that. Something I’ve never heard of, but will have to try one day. I’ve only every made apple pie. I really must get more adventurous in cooking again, but as a ‘single’, lots of cooking doesn’t seem worth the effort for just one.
They cook up very nicely, I used to make tiny versions when i lived alone. one for dinner and one for lunch the next day.. c
I love the sight of all those orange yolks added whole to the pie. Ah, bacon and egg pie — the beach — picnics — summer — aunts and uncles and cousins. I can go down a nostalgia trail very easily on this one. Glad you are moving with care. Those bones of yours need to knit back together across the hairlines without any sudden jolts. I hope you have plenty more serendipity, the way you did today – isn’t that a playful and happy word. Serendipity to you.
It is one of my favourite words too.. some words just beg to be said out loud! c
Have spent an hour or so catching up on all your posts while I was out of the country. So sorry to hear that you were hurt in a storm. Happy to read this on this post that at little loving help came your way. 🙂
Karen lovely to see you, your travel pictures have been wonderful. Welcome home again.. c
Your pie looks delicious! I’m not a big sweet pie fan though my mom made the best ever lemon meringue! I prefer my apples in a cobbler along with a few craisins for tartness. What I’m really wondering is what kind of processor do you have? I’ve been looking but there are so many and I really have no place to put a big “honkin’” one. I do have a blender and a stand mixture so maybe they would work as well as a processor? Sometimes all those helpful gadgets are more of a bother than anything else. Wishing you a speedy recovery, I know how aggravating it is when you WANT to and CANNOT!
Forgot, kudos to your neighbor. A good neighbor is worth more than gold. When i had what I thought was an overly fat new mare present me with a surprise foal in the mud I saw my neighbor at her mail box down the road. I stood on the front porch and yelled and she came running, no questions asked, no hesitation at all and we got mom and baby up and tucked in a nice warm stall. Now THAT’S a wonderful neighbor.
What a lovey surprise for you and your neighbour. My FP is a little cuisanart.. cost about 30 dollars and fits in the bottom drawer. perfick. c
I must make this pie with the peas and onion…mmm. I have made similar individual small tarts with bacon, whole egg and shallots which are great picnic food.
Apparently there is controversy as to if the pie is Australia’s national dish, but if not, it’s certainly iconic, although it might be fair to say the Kiwi’s affection is greater, as I’ve not seen a pie shop at Sydney airport, and if I did it’s probably not the place I’d indulge in one.
Just a few weeks ago the G.O. visited a country produce market during a weekend away, where there was much wonderful food on offer but we both knew as soon as we saw the homemade pie stall, that was our breakfast – a rabbit pie for me and two duck pies for the G.O. – no sauce.
Glad the resting is working, and that your neighbor was able to help 🙂
Yum! My kids would love that!
When I think of pies I think of savoury ones first too. Trying to explain to a Canadian recently what a steak and kidney pudding was proved tricky. Chicken pie I make a lot – but I really like the look of your eggs, what a clever idea.
steak and kidney pudding would be hard to explain alright! c
In Philadelphia and Brooklyn (and probably most of the Italian parts of the NE corridor, but those are the places I’ve lived) a ‘pie’ without any qualifier is a pizza. That one confused me a lot when I first heard it! I love and welcome every kind of pie, I think I have yet to meet one I don’t like 🙂
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mmm, looks tasty! And looks like a great way to use up some of my chicken eggs!
Such a quintessential New Zealand ‘delicacy’! LOVE Egg & Bacon Pie – thanks for sharing your recipe with the world Celi!
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