What's the best way to be a supportive friend? When a distressed pianist rang me up to say that the female pianist he had been seeing had severed relations (because she liked him too much. This is typical of musician-logic. Never get involved emotionally with a musician!), I naturally offered the most comforting response I could think of.
"Come and have a drink, and then let's cook supper together."
Luckily I had spent the afternoon experimenting with my pastry-making abilities; I've never liked short pastry but have always assumed that flaky pastry was both too difficult and too arduous for me to make. A Darina Allen recipe that promised infallible results provided the instructions were followed meticulously, combined with an empty Sunday afternoon, had inspired me, so a beautiful pat of raw flaky pastry was resting in my fridge, just right for providing aid and succour to heartbroken keyboardists.
We didn't follow a recipe for the filling (although we did glance at a couple of Nigella recipes for inspiration), but relied heavily on the contents of the musical fridge. The fridge and the local Turkish convenience store provided the ingredients for a broccoli, bacon and cheese pie, with red chilli to add zing visually and orally, and an egg to hold it all together.
Add some salad and red wine and it certainly softened the blow of being dumped.
Technical notes: I used unsalted butter in the pastry, which was a mistake as it left the pastry a little bit bland, and I was too proud of my pastry to bring myself to trim it properly - hence the odd triangles folded over the top of the pie. That was another mistake, as it left undercooked wodges of pastry under the triangles. I'll know better for next time.
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