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Egg and Bacon Pie to Eat Cold
766. Steep a few thin slices of bacon all night in water, lay them in a pie dish; beat eight eggs with a pint of cream, add pepper and salt, and pour it on the bacon; cover it with a crust, and bake in a moderate oven the day before you require it.
A baked egg custard set over bacon under a pastry lid — essentially a lidded quiche meant to be cut cold. The whole thing hinges on gentle heat: this much cream and egg will curdle and weep if the oven is pushed.
- Moderate ovenRead this as 325-350F. At the top of that range the custard sets in about 45-55 minutes; it should still wobble slightly at the centre when you take it out, since it goes on cooking as it cools.
- The overnight soakBacon of the kind this recipe assumes was salted heavily for keeping, and a night in cold water would have been needed to make it edible in a custard. Modern wet-cured supermarket bacon is far milder — thirty minutes in cold water is plenty, and unsmoked back bacon needs none. Salt the eggs lightly, and taste before you do.
- A pint of creamAn imperial pint is 20 fl oz, so about 2 1/2 US cups. Eight eggs to that volume is a firm, sliceable custard rather than a soft one, which is exactly what a pie eaten cold needs.
- Crust only on top"Cover it with a crust" means a pastry lid over the filled dish, not a lined pie shell. Shortcrust is right; cut a vent so steam does not lift the lid off the custard, and use a deep dish, as the eggs rise as they set.
- Make sure the bacon cooksThe bacon goes in raw and cooks only in the custard, so keep the slices genuinely thin and lay them flat in a single overlapping layer. Thick, piled rashers will still be flabby when the eggs are done.
- Cooling and keepingThe instruction to bake it a day ahead follows from its being eaten cold; resting it also lets the custard firm up. Cool it to room temperature, then refrigerate rather than leaving it out overnight as the original assumes, and bring it back to cool room temperature before cutting.
- YieldMade in a 9-inch deep dish this serves six to eight as a cold lunch dish with pickles or salad.
Cold pies of this kind were practical food before refrigeration: a pastry lid sealed the surface, salt bacon was a keeping meat, and the whole thing could be cut cold and eaten in the hand. The combination of eggs, cream and bacon baked in a crust is the same idea that later became familiar in Britain under the French name quiche, though egg-and-bacon pies were being made in English kitchens long before that word entered common use here. The direction to soak the bacon overnight is the clearest period detail — it suggests the compiler expected bacon salted for months of storage, not the lightly cured rashers sold today. The terse, one-breath style assumes a cook who already knows how to make and lay a crust.