Hairy Bikers ham and egg pie hides 12 quails’ eggs in a terrine of ham hock, pork shoulder and belly, sealed in hot-water crust. And this Perfect Pies recipe serves 6 at my estimate of 930 calories each, though it takes about 13 hours by my reckoning.
As kids, Si and Dave write, they “always used to wonder how you got the egg in the middle”. And the secret is layering: 6 eggs on the first third of meat, 6 on the second, then a final third on top.
Cool the reduced stock for an hour before it goes in, but never let it set again, since it has to trickle into every gap. So pour it bit by bit through the hole in the lid, stopping now and then, until the pie is full to the top.
Hairy Bikers Ham and Egg Pie
Description
A butter-and-lard hot-water crust lines a foil-lined terrine before the seasoned meat and peeled quails’ eggs go in. Once baked and glazed twice, it cools, takes reduced hock stock through the lid, then chills until the jelly sets.
Ingredients
For the filling
For the hot-water crust
Instructions
- Cook the ham hock: Put the ham hock in a large saucepan with the carrot, onion, bay leaves and peppercorns, then pour over the water to just cover it. Bring to a simmer, skim, then simmer uncovered for 2¼ hours until tender, turning it every 30 minutes. Top up with just-boiled water whenever the level drops more than 3cm, then drain over a saucepan, keeping the stock and hock.
- Mix the filling: Once the stock is cool, chill it, then boil the quails’ eggs for 4 minutes, cool them under running water and peel them. Then skin the hock, pull off the meat and cut 200g of it into 2cm chunks. Mix this with the pork shoulder, pork belly, ginger, nutmeg, salt and lots of black pepper.
- Line the terrine: Grease a 24cm terrine, 7cm wide and 6cm deep, then line it with double foil overhanging by at least 5cm and butter it again.
- Make the hot-water crust: Sift the flour with the pepper and rub in the butter and 50g of the lard until it looks like fine breadcrumbs. Then simmer the remaining lard, water and salt and stir it into the flour, first with a wooden spoon and then your fingers. Cover the smooth dough with cling film and leave it out of the fridge for 30 minutes, until cool enough to handle.
- Line with pastry: Keep a third of the pastry for the lid, then roll the rest on a floured surface, 5mm thick and 5cm longer than the terrine. And make it twice as wide, so it lines the terrine with the excess hanging over the sides. Then press it into the corners, patching any tears with a little cold water and spare dough.
- Layer the filling: Spoon in a third of the meat and press it down, then top with half the eggs. Cover with another third of meat and the rest of the eggs, then finish with the last of the meat so every egg is covered.
- Lid and chill: Roll out the reserved pastry, brush the overhanging edges with water and press the lid on firmly, then trim and pinch up a crimped edge. Keep a ball of trimmings for patching, then make a pea-sized hole in the lid with a skewer, wide enough for your funnel. Chill for 30 minutes while you preheat the oven to 180°C/Fan 160°C/Gas 4.
- Bake and glaze: Bake on a tray in the centre of the oven for 1 hour, then carefully lift the pie out of the terrine on its foil. Return it to the tray, peel the foil down to the base without removing it, then glaze it with egg and bake for 15 minutes. Glaze again and bake a final 15 minutes until golden, then cool it for 2 to 3 hours, chilling it after the first hour.
- Add the jelly: Scrape the fat off the stock and boil it down to about 600ml, then cool it for an hour without letting it set. Pour it in slowly through the hole with a narrow funnel, pausing so it trickles down, until it reaches the top. Use about half of it, then chill for several hours or overnight until set, and serve in thick slices with salad and pickles.
FAQs
Is this the old-fashioned ham and egg pie?
It’s the only ham and egg pie I’ve found across the 16 of their books I cook from. But for an old-fashioned plate pie with hen’s eggs, their egg and bacon pie, with 9 eggs under butter shortcrust, is the closest match.
This one is a cold raised pie, closer to a gala pie, so it needs a terrine, a funnel and hours in the fridge.
How is it different from their gala picnic pie?
Their gala picnic pie in Meat Feasts also uses 12 quails’ eggs, but stands them on end in one line down the middle. Where this one sits in a terrine, that pie is shaped by hand on a tray, with sausage meat, minced pork and streaky bacon.
It bakes for just 30 minutes at 200°C with no jelly, so it’s the quicker route. While they grew up on “luminous pink gala pie with green egg”, they call this one the gourmet version.
What should I serve with it?
In Perfect Pies, their tomato and onion salad of 6 tomatoes, red onion, garlic, oil and balsamic is “just what you want” with this pie. Since the pie is so rich, I find the balsamic and raw onion cut through it nicely.
For the pickles, the headnote of their Perfect Pies piccalilli says to try it with a ham and egg pie. Because this pie uses the same hot-water crust as their raised pork pies, the two make a good cold spread, to my mind.
What can I do with the rest of the ham hock?
Just 200g of the meat goes into the pie, so a 1kg hock leaves plenty over, along with about half the reduced stock. So their croquetas in Meat Feasts suit it, taking 200g of leftover ham hock, and they let hock stock replace 200ml of milk.
If you’d rather put a whole hock to work another day, their pea and ham soup simmers one with split peas.
Can I make it ahead, and what if the pastry splits?
You have to make it ahead, since the jelly needs several hours or overnight in the fridge before you cut it. But they don’t give a keeping time, so I keep it covered in the fridge and eat it within 3 days, my own rule.
If the pastry splits in the oven, their pork pie tip is to brush it with egg and smooth spare pastry over the crack. Or if juices bubble out of the hole, a small foil chimney about 4cm tall poked into the lid stops them drenching the pastry.
