Egg and Bacon Pie by popular demand

A friend asked me recently why I didn't do much cooking with meat. I didn't really have a good answer as to why not so this post is really dedicated my friend and shows I do sometimes use meat in my recipes.

It was Thursday night, it had a been the longest four day week I had experienced for a long time and had been made more difficult by the unexpected and disruptive snow on the Wednesday. I came home from work, slapped Peter Gabriel's excellent 2003 best of compilation "Hit" onto the CD player and with the sounds of stabbing synthesizers from his 1982 hit "Shock the Monkey" ringing in my ears I set about making an egg and bacon pie.

I wanted to make something that was quick and easy as I had received an exciting offer of a night on the town from the friend who had urged me to use a bit more meat in my cooking.

I first thoroughly greased a 20cm wide and 3cm deep glass pie dish with margarine and dusted the dish with plain flour to help stop the pie sticking to it when cooked. I next took eight ounces of plain flour and four ounces of margarine and rubbed them in until the mixture represented golden breadcrumbs. I then poured two tablespoons of milk into the bowl and mixed the ingredients together until the mixture joined together to form a pastry. I next kneaded it in the bowl to be sure the mixture was strong enough to hold together.

I meanwhile took three eggs and whisked them together in a bowl before taking ten rashers of smoked back bacon and cutting all the fat of them on a chopping board. I took care to cut the meat into squares of 2cm x 2cm and then mixed them in the bowl with the eggs and some black pepper.

I then turned my attention to the pastry and rolled it out flat on the work surface while making sure to put a bit of flour on the work surface and the rolling pin to make sure the pastry did not stick. I lined the bottom of the pastry dish with half the pastry and then poured the egg and bacon into the dish. I then put the rest of the pastry on top and pressed the edges down so as to seal the egg and bacon inside the pie.

It's always a mistake if you leave no holes in a pie and then cook it as the air needs to be let out during the cooking process. With this in mind I cut three 2cm slits in the middle of the pie and then brushed it with some skimmed milk.

I cooked the pie in the oven at 180 degrees (190 if you have a non-fanned oven) for thirty-five minutes. If you have a less powerful oven it's worth cooking it for forty minutes.

The pie took me about an hour in total to prepare and cook from scratch and was delicious when eaten with some brown sauce. It also meant I was ready for my night out in good time and the tasty pie put me in the right mood to enjoy the company of great people old and new.