Porkie Pies

Did you watch The Great British Bake Off? It was amazing, and one of my favourite things on television. I'm not overly excited by some other cooking competition TV (notably Masterchef - so much shouting, so tense!), but this is wonderful. There is the right amount of tension, and everyone is so lovely and British and nice. Janet is (was) my favourite. Oh Janet! So sweet. And so unlike the others. Like me, Janet is no stranger to the 'a couple of grams more or less won't make a difference either way' method of cooking. Janet, if by chance you see this, come teach me how to bake, please.

Although I haven't had a chance to watch the final yet, I do know who won, and I am aware of the squirrel star of the show, which is an Internet meme waiting to happen (view it here at your own risk).
 
A couple of weeks ago they made pork pies. Having never had a pork pie, I was intrigued by the idea. The results look suitably delicious, but terribly difficult to achieve. Leaving them over night, using jelly, inserting an egg in the middle. All an awful lot of work. Last Saturday however, I had the urge to bake something. Having originally planned to roast a pork belly, I soon decided that as it was 30 degrees outside I'd rather make something easy I could have on a picnic. I found this recipe, for cheats pork pies, on Donal Skehan's website, and decided to give it a go. I altered it slightly to my tastes. To be fair, they are basically just glorified sausage rolls. Calling these pork pies would be telling pork pies (I have been working on making that less laboured all week, there is no way), but they were delicious and I would definitely have them on a picnic again, in 10 months time (sob). You probably don't need all the 'splashes' I recommend, I just used what was in front of me.

Easy Pork Pies (makes 12 miniature pies)

Ingredients

3 rashers of bacon
400g sausage meat (the butcher didn't have any, so he kindly just split open a load of sausages for me. I'm sure this would be very easy to do yourself)
2 onions, sliced finely
2 small cloves of garlic, sliced finely
Salt and pepper
Mixed herbs
A splash of Worcester sauce
A tiny splash of Tabasco
2 sheets of shortcrust pastry (this means two packets, incidentally. I'm sure most people know this, but I did not, and it resulted in a rushed second journey to the shop. Which I didn't enjoy)
1 beaten egg to glaze the tops

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees/gas 6
Fry the bacon on a medium heat until it's crispy and golden.
Fry the onion and garlic in the bacon fat on a low heat until they're soft. While this is going on, cut the bacon into small pieces and place in a bowl.
When the onions are done, mix them with the sausage meat and bacon in the bowl. Use your hands for this, it's fun.
Cut 12 circular disks from the pastry to fit the muffin tray, and then 12 smaller ones for the lids. For this I used a mug for the big ones, and a small glass for the little ones. You probably have special cutters for this though.
Place the larger disks into the muffin tin, and fill each with about 1 tablespoon of pork mixture.
Top with the smaller disks, making sure to seal.
Brush the tops with the beaten egg (I used the back of a teaspoon, because a pastry brush is very low down on my list of things to buy at the moment)
Pop in the oven for 20 minutes
Allow to cool (I ate one warm which was lovely too)
Enjoy. I served mine with just a few cornichons and some English mustard, but a nice crisp carrot salad would have been lovely with this, I think. The butcher I went to also sold Tayto crisps and Club Orange, which made for a delicious and nostalgic picnic.