Full English Pie recipe | Sainsbury`s Magazine (2024)

All the flavours of the classic fry-up, in pie form!

Calum Franklin

Executive head chef of the Holborn Dining Room in London, Calum Franklin is a self-described ‘pastry deviant’, specialising in intricately decorated pies and Wellingtons with unusual fillings. The restaurant sells over 200 of his creations a day.

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Ingredients

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Step by step

1. Boil the eggs for 6 minutes, remove with a draining spoon and cool for 10 minutes in a large bowl of iced water. Peel and set aside on kitchen paper in the fridge.
2. Heat the oil in a frying pan over a medium heat and sauté the mushrooms until any liquid has evaporated and they are starting to colour. Drain on kitchen paper and allow to cool.
3. Cut each block of pastry in half. Roll 1 piece out on a floured surface, to a rectangle about 18 x 28cm (for the lid). Put onto a lined tray and chill in the fridge.
4. Stack the other 3 pieces of pastry together, then use your rolling pin to gently press them down. Roll out to about 5mm thick, measuring about 30 x 45cm.
5. Grease the loaf tin with butter, then line with this pastry, leaving a 2cm overlap above the tin edges. Chill in the freezer for 15 minutes (or until the pastry has set hard).
6. Meanwhile, mix the sausage meat, black pudding, sun-dried tomatoes, mushrooms and bacon in a bowl until well combined. Weigh the mix and split in half. Put half into the pastry case and pack down, forming a little channel down the length for the eggs to nestle in. With a sharp knife, slice a little off each end of the eggs so that they will lie end-to-end (being careful not to cut into the yolk) and then line up down the length of the well. You may only fit in 5 eggs. Gently pack the remaining meat on top of the eggs, mounding up if need be to fit it all in.
7. Preheat the oven to 200°C, fan 180°C, gas 6. Take the pastry rectangle out of the fridge and lay it across the top of the pie. Join the overlapped edges, trim off the excess pastry and firmly crimp together. Beat the egg yolk with a pinch of salt to make a glaze, brush over the lid and allow to chill in the freezer for at least 15 minutes or until firm.
8. Brush again with more egg yolk glaze, score the top decoratively if you like and make a small steam hole. Place on a baking tray and cook for 1 hour or until the central temperature reads 50°C using a kitchen probe. If you don’t have a probe, insert a metal skewer and leave it in for a minute or so; it should be hot to the touch when you take it out. Remove the pie from the oven and leave in the tin to rest for 30 minutes.
9. Turn the pie out of the tin (into a clean kitchen towel is easiest, then upturn onto a board or serving plate). Slice with a serrated knife to serve. The pie is meant to be served hot but can, of course, also be eaten cold.