Madhouse recipe : Egg & Bacon Pie

When flicking through my most recently acquired cookbook, Pastry Recipes by Catherine Atkinson (I've put the amazon link below so you can find out more but I nabbed it at The Works for a bargaintastic £2 over the summer), my attention was caught by Egg & Bacon Pie. I'd never thought of putting raw whole eggs under pastry then baking them and I was intrigued to how it would work. Well, I was reasonably impressed - it was quite dry but I used shop-bought pastry as a timesaver and it was definitely drier and more bland than if I'd made my own shortcrust pastry. I added leftover cooked potatoes, which weren't in the original recipe, and next time I'd also add tomatoes and mushrooms to make it moister and complete the full English breakfast in a pie experience. It's just as good cold as hot, so it would be great for picnics and packed lunches.

Here's my tweaked version :

 Egg & Bacon Pie

ingredients :

2 sheets of shop-bought shortcrust pastry (or make your own)

2 leftover baked potatoes

1 onion

8 bacon rashers

5 eggs

(I'd also add 2 sliced tomatoes and 4 fried mushrooms next time)

a little milk (to brush the pastry)

Lay out the first pastry sheet in an ovenproof pie tin, lined with baking parchment.

Chop the cooked potato into chunks and scatter over the pastry base.

Fry an onion and the bacon rashers. When cool enough to handle, chop the rashers into strips with a pair of scissors. Scatter the onions than the bacon strips over the potatoes. Press down with your hands to squish the filling fairly flat.

Crack the eggs directly into the pan. Tilt it gently so that the egg whites run together but try not to crack the yolks.

Lay the second pastry sheet over the top and fold the edges underneath, crimping them together to seal them. Brush with milk and make some small slits to let the steam out.

Bake at 180° for half an hour or so, until the pastry is golden brown.

This would look and taste even better with a layer of tomato slices under the bacon and some mushrooms at the bottom under the potato. You could even add more vegetables, such as kale, to give it more colour. I've just had another though - you could make buttery mash with the potato which would make it less dry too.

In conclusion, it's not bad at all, but I'd call it a work in progress.

It was a great way of using up leftover baked potatoes so I'm adding it to this month's #KitchenClearout linky.