Sausage and egg picnic pie

Much head-scratching occurs when it comes to picnic food. Now that summer has decided to surprise us with its presence, I for one spend more time than is probably necessary staring out of the window and idly considering just what and how much I can shove in my face at the weekend.

And it’s never all that straightforward. Good, proper, homemade picnic food needs to fulfil several criteria: it has to be portable, obviously. Ideally it shouldn’t need eating with cutlery, or at least without the need for sharp knives and fish forks – a plastic fork at the most (again, this is ideally). It also shouldn’t demand too much time in the kitchen. For the sun is out, and you don’t want to be grunting around with homemade puff pastry and slow poached eggs. Finally, of course, it should be bloody delicious.

I feel quietly confident that this pie – which I originally made with pheasant eggs but which has here been adapted – ticks the boxes. All you need to serve it with is a pot of mustard and a bottle of cold cider.