Monday, October 10, 2011

Everything pie, or, a quiche by any other name would drive off the punters


I’m not sure what people’s antipathy towards quiche is. Maybe it has vague connotations of wankery and the perilous classism of mid 90s cafe culture, maybe it has too many consonants and is pronounced in a way which makes our brutish antipodean ears baulk, maybe it is French. Either way, quiche is pretty much the same thing as bacon and egg pie, but with cream, and is a perfectly acceptable reheated breakfast foodstuff or camping companion. These are eggy pies for people who don’t have the patience to make their own pastry or base, thank heaven and all things good and buttery for our good friends at Ernest Adams.

I don’t see the point in giving exact quantities as pie dishes tend to vary in size from petite and dainty to monstrous tubs and guesstimation is half the fun. Also, as this column continues, I like that things have become increasingly vague as I get tired of measuring things out, and I hope to see this continue.

Piggy pie
  • A pie dish
  • 400g flaky pastry at room temperature (or a couple of pre rolled pastry sheets, joined lovingly together in bakerly union)
  • An onion
  • 8 – 10 eggs
  • 250 – 300g bacon, rind removed
  • A couple of handfuls of grated cheese
  • A tomato, sliced thinly and prettily
  • NO PEAS – they have no place in this pie

Preheat the oven to 220 degrees C. Sprinkle the pie plate with some flour. Roll out the pastry on a lovely clean surface (you can get awesome silicon sheets for this, baking geeks) to 3 – 5mm – you want it to be large enough that you can drape it across the pie plate and still have extra bits hanging down the sides. Do that too.

Slice your onion and bacon into thin strips and sprinkle or layer or thrown them into the pastry lined dish with a handful of cheese, making sure everything is spread out nicely. Trim the excess pastry with a sharp knife, trying to get as nice a cut edge as possible for maximum puffiness. Don’t throw out the scraps!

You can go two ways here. The good way for people like me who hate the texture of egg yolk is to whisk the eggs gently in a bowl, then tip them over the bacon and onion. The evil way is to crack the eggs directly into the pie, in such a way that they are evenly distributed, and either leave them as is or prick the yolks gently for runny bits. Arrange the tomato on top in a pleasing fashion, sprinkle over some cheese and lots of cracked pepper. Bake at 220 degrees for 15 minutes then turn the temperature down to 180 and cook for another 25 - 30 minutes, or until done – the pastry should puff up nicely and the egg in the middle should be puffy but firm if you give it a little prod. If it wiggles suspiciously when you give it a nudge it’s not done, egg’s gotta be set or it looks like ectoplasm.

Everything pie aka eggy pie

As above! But:

This time, instead of the bacon, take everything you think belongs in a pie, chop it up and before lining the tin with pastry, fill it up to make sure you have a good amount of stuff– courgette, broccoli, leeks, onions, tomatoes, one million mushrooms, spring onions, ripped up roast chicken, leftover roast veggies, leftover whatever else, ham, chunks of soft cheese, and so on. Throw all the bits into a big bowl and wipe the pie plate clean before lining it with pastry.

Whisk together 8 or 9 eggs, a couple of big splashes of milk or cream, some pepper and a handful of fresh green herbs and add it to the bowl of everything. Toss it together to make sure everything is coated. It will look like snot salad, no joke. Pour it into the pie dish, sprinkle on some cheese and add a small drizzle of a chutney of your choice or sweet chilli sauce, and cook as above. Dinner and tomorrow’s lunch, sorted.

A word about thriftiness: You have options with your pastry scraps. You can amalgamate them, roll them out and cut long strips out of them to create a pretty lattice pattern on top of the pie before putting it in the oven, like out of a nice picture book about animals who bake. Or, you can roll them out, sprinkle on grated cheese, fold it, roll it out again, and repeat the whole process, then cut them into strips, prick them with a fork and bake them in the oven on a tray = cheesy straws! Or you can make little jam tarts, being aware that hot jam is hot and hot jam can burn. Aren’t you clever.

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