Seeing as, thanks to King Jamie of Oliver, I’m now a whiz with a bit of pastry, I decided to whip up dinner last night in the shape of a kind of sausage and egg pie/quiche effort. Poor B the greyhound was sent wild by the smell of sausages, her little nose twitching and wiggling as she sat in her usual ‘helping with the cooking’ spot, bang in front of the sink. No matter how many times she gets cracked on the head by the dishwasher door, as far as she’s concerned this is her spot and she’s sticking to it.
Anyway, seeing as I’ve been banging on about dogs recently, I thought I’d give you a little bakery interlude to get you busy in the kitchen. Here goes:
8 oz plain flour
5 oz butter
1 egg yolk (bung the extra white in with the others if you can’t bear to waste it)
Couple tablespoons cold water
½ tsp salt
Pack of nice sausages (not those horrid cheap supermarket ones - I think it was my Dad that used to say they’re ‘made with lips and *rseholes’ - oops sorry, I’ll put you off your dinner)
3 eggs
Splash milk
2 or 3 oz Cheese (grated) MUST be Irish. Oh okay not really but Wexford cheddar is particularly yummy
That’s it!
So..whiz the flour and butter together until it kind of looks breadcrummy, or rub it in if you don’t have the benefit of wondrous shiny stainless steel machine that I might have mentioned a couple of times before in a show-offy kind of way. Don’t worry too much. I like it when you roll it out and there’s yellow splodges of butter in the pastry. Add your egg yolk and enough water so it’s just coming together. I rolled it straight out then but I think if you put it in the fridge for a while it’s a bit easier to work with. Line your quiche tin or whatever you’re using (there’s actually enough pastry for two, or for you to put a lid on if you really want to) with the pastry, push it into the corners and cut round the edges with a blunt knife. Then stick that in the fridge while you grill your sausages. Trip over large skinny dog, slithering around your feet looking for stray sausages, then arrange your sausages in a jaunty, star shape in the pastry case (reserving one or two for salivating greyhound at your feet). Whisk up the eggs with a large splosh of milk, mix in the grated cheese, then pour it over the sausages. Bake in the oven at 180 degrees (you know I don’t do gas marks) for about 15 - 20 mins. Remember the sausages are cooked so you’re only setting the eggy mixture. And hey presto! I think this is a really good recipe once you’ve mastered the pastry. My brother’s wife, L, just one of my two particularly wondrous and lovely sisters in law, does a yummy version with cooked prawns and salmon, and adds tomato puree to the eggy mixture so it’s a fetching pink colour. Very nice. I thought afterwards that I should have fried some onions with the sausages too..yummy.
Have noticed recently that I’m getting a bit lardy. Me and the pocket rocket are going to have to start taking longer walks. Either that, or I’m going to have to stop with the experimental cookie making…