(no subject)

[madbaker]

This week's Resolution Recipe: Bacon and Egg Pie.
Note: from a British source so measurements aren't in USian. I have a scale so I measured the weights in g but had to convert the temperatures. Note that 200 g is ~7 oz.

Pastry:
275 g flour
pinch salt
135 g cold unsalted butter, diced (I used half butter and the other half as a combination of leftover salted duck fat from making duck confit, and rendered lard.)
1 medium egg, beaten
1 tsp lemon juice
2-3 Tbsp cold water

Put the flour and salt in a bowl. Blend in the butter until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs. Mix the egg with the lemon juice and water. Make a well in the centre of the dry mixture and pour in the egg mix. Using a table knife, work in just enough liquid to bring the pastry together. When the dough begins to stick together, use your hands to gently knead it into a ball. Wrap the pastry in cling film and rest in the fridge for about 30 minutes.

Filling:
1 Tbsp veg oil
1 large onion, finely chopped (I used a red onion)
1 clove garlic, crushed (Ha! I used... more, and minced it instead. I'd get rid of my garlic press as I never use it anymore, but I think the wife still does on occasion.)
200 g streaky bacon, diced (I used house-made)
200 g pork loin, cut into roughly 1.5cm dice
5 medium eggses plus one additional for glaze
100 g cream cheese (I used soft fresh goat cheese to make it more interesting)
100 g mature Cheddar, grated
1 Tbsp chopped chives (I used several small scallions, diced)
I added: 3/4 tsp powdered sage
about 3 sliced and sauteed mushrooms we had left over in the fridge

Heat the oil in a wide frying pan over medium-low heat and add the onion and garlic. Cook gently for about 8 minutes until soft. Add the bacon and pork and mushrooms, increase the heat a little, and cook for about 10 minutes until any liquid from the meat has been driven off. Leave to cool completely.

Heat the oven to 200 C/gas 6 (that's 400 F to me) and have ready a 20 cm loose-based cake tin, 4 cm deep. (I used a standard springform pan, because my one removable base tart pan is too small.) Beat two of the eggses with the cream cheese until smooth. Add the cheddar and chives and sage and season with salt and pepper. Stir in the cooled bacon mixture.

Roll out 2/3 of the pastry and line the cake tin. Roll out the remaining pastry ready to form the lid. Place the filling mix into the pastry case. Make 3 evenly spaced depressions in the filling and crack the remaining eggses into them. Brush the rim of the pastry with egg and place the lid on top. Press the edges to seal and trim off the excess neatly. Brush the top of the pie with egg and make a steam hold in the centre.

Bake in the oven for 50-55 minutes, until golden brown. Leave the pie to settle for at least 15 minutes before cutting. It is delicious hot or cold.

What worked: This was an excellent homeowners' meeting dinner with onion marmalade and a salad. Fortuitously, we all got a slice with part of a cooked egg in it. I was a bit afraid the crust would stick to the springform since I didn't grease it, but the pan released with no problems and since I had put a parchment circle on the bottom, it didn't stick there either.

The crust was brilliantly flaky and delicious. Yeah, the secret is to have enough fat in there. Or, as the recipe puts it - "a rich shortcrust pastry." The mushrooms were a nice addition.

The leftovers were better reheated than cold. (Mostly because the crust was flakier when reheated.)

What didn't: I didn't bother with trimming off the excess crust neatly, or brushing with egg. I went rustic because I am not auditioning for GBBO. And mostly I didn't feel like bothering. So it wasn't as pretty as it could have been, but honestly if that's the only issue I feel pretty good. I couldn't taste the sage, but perhaps it added to the base flavor.

Will I make it again? I will at least put it in the recipe box. It may be too rich for the wife to want to have it very often.

Comments

[kareina]

Curious as to why you have switched from crushed to minced garlic? Is there a flavour difference? Or is it that a knife & cutting board seem easier to clean? ...or?

[madbaker]

You lose some of the juice and flavor when you crush garlic.

[kareina]

Huh, I never noticed losing any more juice than is lost when using a knife and cutting board. But then, I do the crushing directly over whatever the garlic is going into, so that everything falls into the pot (with the help of the tool I used to scrape the last of it out of the crusher).

[madbaker]

It's especially pronounced when you aren't cooking. The 1500s garlic chorizo is much less pungent with crushed garlic than with minced.

[madbaker]

According to Harold McGee's On Fud and Cooking, the chemical compounds in garlic react differently to crushing and mincing - which results in differing amounts of flavor.