Stargazy pie – sardine pie with eggs and bacon

Combine the 200 g flour for the pastry with 2 g salt. Add 100 g cold cubed butter and briefly rub it in with your fingertips until you have fine crumbs. Pour in 50 ml cold water and quickly bring the dough together into a smooth ball, without prolonged kneading. Flatten, wrap and refrigerate for 45 minutes. Meanwhile, prepare the filling; the pastry can chill while the sauce and eggs cook.

Put the two filling eggs in a small pot and cover with 1 l water. Bring to a boil and cook for 9–10 minutes. Drain the water, cool the eggs under cold running water and peel them; discard the shells. Cut the eggs into large pieces. Run your fingers over the sardine fillets and remove any larger bones you find. Weigh out 500 g of skin-on fillets, without heads. Separately prepare 6 cleaned heads without gills; you can ask your fishmonger for fillets and heads from the same batch. Refrigerate the fillets and heads until assembly, and wash your hands and utensils after handling raw fish.

Cut the bacon into small dice, finely chop the onion, and split the leek lengthwise, rinse out any grit and cut it into thin half-moons. Heat the bacon in a skillet over medium-low heat for 6–8 minutes, until some fat renders out. Add the 25 g butter for the sauce, all the onion and the leek, and cook for 8–10 minutes, stirring, until the vegetables are soft. Keep all the fat and juices in the skillet; do not drain them.

Sprinkle the 25 g flour for the sauce over the vegetables and stir for 2 minutes over low heat. Gradually pour in the fish stock, milk and cream, stirring constantly to work out any lumps. Bring to a gentle boil and cook for 8–10 minutes, stirring, until the sauce clearly thickens and coats a spoon. Add all the black pepper and some of the 2 g salt set aside for the sauce only if needed. Transfer the entire contents of the skillet to a shallow dish. Cool for 20–30 minutes, then refrigerate for 30–45 minutes until the sauce is cold. Keep the fish separately refrigerated during this time.

Preheat the oven to 190°C with top and bottom heat. Prepare a round pie dish approximately 24 cm across and approximately 5 cm deep. Chop all the parsley. Cut the fillets into large pieces, keeping all their juices. Mix the cold sauce with the fillets, chopped hard-boiled eggs and parsley. Transfer all the filling to the dish. Set the heads near the edge with their cut ends in the filling and their snouts pointing slightly upward and outward; the lid will help hold them in place.

Beat the separate glazing egg and weigh out 20 g; save the unused portion for another dish. Roll the cold pastry between two sheets of parchment into a circle approximately 27 cm across and approximately 5 mm thick. No extra flour is needed for dusting. Mark the head positions and make 6 short slits for them to protrude through. Brush the dish rim with a little of the weighed egg. Carefully fit the pastry, guiding the heads through the slits one at a time. Fold the overhanging edge under and press it against the rim, using all the pastry as the lid. Brush the top with the rest of the weighed egg, avoiding the heads.

Set the dish on a baking sheet and place it on the middle oven rack. Bake for 40–45 minutes at 190°C with top and bottom heat. The lid should be clearly golden and crisp, the filling hot and the sardines fully cooked. The sauce may bubble gently around the slits. If the top darkens too quickly, cover it loosely with foil and continue baking. The heads stay in the pie only until portioning.

After taking the pie out, let it rest for 10 minutes. The heads give it its distinctive appearance; remove them before portioning and do not serve them as food. Divide all the shortcrust lid and the filling with fish, eggs and bacon among 4 plates. Keep all the sauce and baking juices with the servings. Serve hot, carefully spooning the soft filling from beneath the crisp top.