Bacon, eggs, cheese baked in a hand-pie
Is there anyone who doesn’t love an eggy breakfast sandwich? Food writer Cathy Barrow — who writes the “Bring It” column for the Washington Post — decided to take that basic concept and elevate it. The result? All that deliciousness — crunchy bacon, softly scrambled eggs and melty cheese — encased in a pie dough tailor-made for lovers of everything bagels and baked up in individual servings.
The breakfast hand-pie recipe is one of more than 60 in Barrow’s new cookbook, “When Pies Fly: Handmade Pastries from Strudels to Stromboli, Empanadas to Knishes” (Grand Central Publishing, $30), which came out this fall. You’ll find everything in here from Savory Nectarine Marscapone Tart to Pork Pastor Empanadas, Spiced Apple Strudels and Thanksgiving-in-a-Bite Pie Poppers.
This recipe relies on a couple of brilliant tricks. First, the dough is spiked with a homemade everything-but-the-bagel seasoning that adds crunchiness and vibrant flavor to the mix. Second, remember that those eggs are going to cook twice so, Barrow says, “slightly undercook the eggs for silky, tender curds in the final pie.”
And third, she says, remember that these little pie — baked or unbaked — can be frozen, then popped into the oven on a busy morning, which makes it “the ideal breakfast for all the on-the-go people in your household.”
Here’s how it’s done.
Bacon, Egg, and Swiss Hand Pies
Makes 12 Ingredients: 6 slices thick-cut smoked bacon, diced 6 large eggs 2 tablespoons cool water ¼ teaspoon herbes de Provence ½ teaspoon kosher salt ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper ½ cup shredded Jarlsberg or another firm Swiss-style cheese 3 tablespoons chopped fresh chives 2 recipes Everything Spice Pie Dough, below, formed
into square blocks Egg wash (1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon cool water and ¼ teaspoon kosher salt)
Directions Line a dinner plate with paper towels. Cook the bacon in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat until crisp. Remove with a slotted spoon to the paper-lined plate. Pour off all but 1 tablespoon of the bacon fat.
In a bowl, beat the eggs, water, herbs, salt, and pepper until foamy and light. Return the pan to medium heat and add the eggs to the hot bacon fat. With a silicone spatula, push the eggs across the pan, scraping the cooked eggs off the bottom of the pan in large, fluffy curds that are tender and slightly moist. The eggs will take no more than 8 minutes. Do not let them brown or dry out; remember they will be baked again, inside the pie. Scrape the eggs into a medium bowl and fold in the bacon, cheese, and chives. Cool completely.
Line two baking sheets with parchment. Place a baking steel, baking stone, or inverted baking sheet on the center rack and heat the oven to 400 degrees.
Remove one block of dough from the refrigerator. Roll out the dough to an approximate 11-inch square and cut into 12 rectangles, each 3½- to 4½-inch. Add a packed scant ¼ cup filling to one rectangle and form a hand pie with a second rectangle. Transfer to a baking sheet and firmly forkcrimp the edges. Vent with three short diagonal slashes across the top. Brush the surface with egg wash.
Continue to make and slash the remaining pies. Refrigerate or freeze while repeating the process with the other block of pie dough to make a total of 12 hand pies.
Bake the hand pies for 30 to 35 minutes, until deeply golden brown, switching their position from top to bottom and front to back halfway through the bake. Freeze hand pies (baked or unbaked) for up to 3 months.
Everything Spice Pie Dough
Makes 1 recipe pie dough Ingredients 1 1⁄3 cups all-purpose flour 8 tablespoons unsalted butter, cubed and frozen for 20 minutes 1 tablespoon Everything Spice Mix (recipe follows) 1⁄8 teaspoon kosher salt ¼ cup ice water
Directions Using a food processor fitted with the metal blade, combine the flour, butter, everything spice mix and salt, using the pulse function to cut the flour and butter into flour-covered peasized pieces, about 15 quick pulses. Add the ice water all at once and process until the dough almost comes together in a ball. All the flour will be dampened and the dough will clump.
Spend time on this next step because the more compact and precise the dough, the easier it is to roll to the correct size and thickness: Form an X with two long pieces of overlapping plastic wrap and lightly flour the surface. Dump the dough onto the center of the plastic wrap, scraping the processor bowl clean. Wrap the sloppy gathering of dough in plastic and, at the same time, use a bench scraper (not your warm hands that might melt the butter clumps) to form the dough into a 4-inch disk or a 3½by 3½-inch block. Once wrapped, use a rolling pin to gently press across the surface of the dough, then flip it over and do the same on the other side.
Now let it rest: Refrigerate the dough for at least 4 hours or preferably overnight. Alternatively, slip the plastic-wrapped dough block into a ziptop bag and freeze it for up to 3 months.
Defrost gently, overnight in the refrigerator.
Everything Spice Mix
Directions In a small jar, mix the poppy seeds, sesame seeds, onion, garlic, and salt. Cover and store in the refrigerator.
Excerpted from “When Pies Fly: Handmade Pastries from Strudels to Stromboli, Empanadas to Knishes” by Cathy Barrow (copyright © 2019 by Cathy Barrow). Reprinted with permission from Grand Central Publishing. All rights reserved.