Favourite Sausage Pie Recipes

Sausage pie recipes are up there with some of our favourite comfort food dishes. Rosie and Harriet made this delicious bacon and sausage pie recipe for our recent team lunch and, with Autumn approaching, we thought it would be rude not to share their comforting and warming sausage pie recipe. They took Nigella’s Pizza Rustica recipe here and gave it a jolly spin by using our Great Taste Award winning, British Outdoor Bred and RSPCA Assured sausages and bacon. Our peppery Proper Porker British Sausages give sausage pie recipes a burst of flavour plus our Double Oak and Beech Smoked British Bacon add a lovely smokiness to the mix. Give it a try!

Ingredients

FOR THE PASTRY:
125 grams cold unsalted butter (cut into 1cm / ½ inch cubes)
2 egg yolks
2 tablespoons iced water
1 heaped teaspoon salt (heaped teaspoon)
1 tablespoon caster sugar
250 grams plain flour

FOR THE FILLING:
1 pack of The Jolly Hog Proper Porker British Sausages, taken out of their casings
1 pack of The Jolly Hog Double Smoked Streaky Bacon
1 tablespoon olive oil
250 grams ricotta cheese
50 grams edam (diced or grated)
125 grams mozzarella (crumbled)
50 grams freshly grated Parmesan cheese
½ clove garlic (chopped)
2 tablespoons chopped fresh flatleaf parsley
2 pinches of chilli powder (or crushed dried red chillies)
100 grams mortadella (cut into small pieces)
2 eggs (lightly beaten)
black pepper
1 heaped tablespoon dried breadcrumbs (heaped tablespoon)

FOR THE GLAZE:
1 egg yolk
2 tablespoons milk
1 pinch of salt

Method

– Put the flour and butter in a dish, and put this dish in the deep freeze for 10 minutes. Stir together the yolks, water and salt in a cup, and put this cup in the fridge. Then, when time’s up, tip the flour and butter into the bowl of the processor, add the sugar and pulse to combine: you want a soft crumbly mass, somewhere between sand and porridge oats. Bind with the egg yolks, water and salt, and when it looks like it’s on the verge of coming together (you have to stop slightly short of this actually happening), tip the pastry out and wodge it together with your hands. Don’t worry, though, if the pastry is a little too damp: I find one of the miracles of this pre-freezing pastry technique is that it makes it more foolproof on every level. It always seems to roll out well.
– Divide into two discs, one somewhat larger than the other, and put both into the fridge to rest wrapped in clingfilm.
– Preheat the oven to 200ºC/180ºC Fan/gas mark 6/400ºF, put in a baking sheet, and get on with the filling. Squeeze the meat out of our sausages then fry the sausage meat in the oil for about 5 minutes, breaking it up with a wooden spoon as it cooks, then transfer it to a bowl and let it cool. At which time, add all the other ingredients except the breadcrumbs and mix thoroughly.
– Roll out the larger disc of pastry to cover the bottom and sides of a 22cm springform tin, leaving a few centimetres’ overhang. Sprinkle the bottom of the now pastry-lined tin with breadcrumbs, and then fill with the hammy, eggy mixture waiting in its bowl. Roll out the smaller disc to make the lid, place it on top of the filled pie, turn over the edges of the overhang to form a border and press down with the tines of a fork.
– Just before baking, glaze the pie by brushing over the milky, salty egg, stab it here and there with the prongs of a fork to make steam holes, and place it on the baking sheet in the preheated oven. Give it 10 minutes at this temperature, then turn it down to 180ºC/160ºC Fan/gas mark 4/350ºF and bake for a further 45 minutes.
– Leave the pie to cool for at least 10 minutes before serving it, but it’s at its best after about 25. It’s still wonderful at room temperature, though, and I long for leftovers too, eaten standing by the fridge’s open door the next day.