Few people can resist home-baked items and here's one of my favourites, firm enough to travel well and substantial enough to be the lunch centrepiece.
Ingredients
For the pastry
180g unsalted butter
240g plain flour
Pinch of salt
1/4 cup water
For the filling
6 rashers thickly sliced smoked streaky bacon, rind removed
2 tbsp freshly chopped parsley
1 tsp freshly snipped chives
11 eggs
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Method
For the pastry
Bring butter to room temperature. Sift flour and salt onto workbench. Chop butter into smallish pieces, toss lightly in flour and rub lightly together. Make a well in centre and pour in water. Work into a lumpy dough. Using the heel of your hand, quickly smear pastry away from you across the bench to combine. Press into a flat cake, dust with flour, wrap in plastic film and refrigerate for 20-30 minutes before rolling out.
Preheat oven to 180C. Line a 22-cm loose-bottomed flan tin with just over half the pastry and chill again for 30 minutes. Roll out rest of pastry to make a lid and set aside.
For the filling
Lightly fry bacon and cut into pieces. Scatter two-thirds of the bacon over base of pastry case. Scatter with half the herbs. Break 10 of the eggs, one at a time, into a cup and slip each into pastry case, being careful not to break yolks. Season and add rest of herbs.
Carefully add remaining bacon, then cover with pastry lid. Let pastry settle over the hump of each egg, then trim it and seal edges carefully. Whisk remaining egg and a pinch of salt together and brush over pastry. Bake for 35 minutes until a rich gold. Allow to cool before removing from tin. Serve warm or cold.