An absolute crowd pleaser, this is indulgent and creamy with a nice crunchy top. it is also a good way of using leftover chicken. You can make the mixture ahead of time for a tasty mid-week dinner of crunchy pastry and creamy meaty filling.
In this recipe I used chicken thighs and drumsticks to make the chicken for the pie. You can use the same flavourings to make a terrific roast chicken or just baked chicken pieces to serve with roasted vegetables or a leafy salad.
Cooks in: 50 minutes |
Feeds: 6 Adults |
Effort: Medium |
Price: Cheap |
Ingredients:
- 4 chicken drumsticks and thighs.
o I like to use skin on corn fed chicken.
- 1 or 2 leeks depending on how big they are
- 2 banana shallots
- 4 garlic cloves
- few sprigs of fresh thyme and rosemary
- 4 Chestnut mushrooms
- 2 teaspoons wholegrain mustard
- 1 cup double cream
- 1 pint stock
- 1 small glass of dry white wine
- 1 small glass vermouth
- generous pinch sea salt and fresh ground black pepper
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 pack ready rolled all butter puff pastry
- 1 beaten egg for glazing the pie
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Method:
Preheat the oven to 200C. It is best to cook the chicken from room temperature so remove it from the fridge 30 minutes or so before you start cooking.
Add the chicken to a baking dish and coat lightly in olive oil. Add a generous pinch of salt and pepper and 2 cloves crushed garlic. Add 2 sprigs rosemary and thyme sprinkled over the chicken.
Loosely cover with tin foil and bake for approximately 20 minutes before removing the tin foil and continuing to cook until the skin is gently browned.
Once the chicken is cooked, remove the skin and shred the meet of the bone using a fork ensuring that no bits of bone remain.
Meanwhile, chop the leeks and shallots to long thin strips.
Leek Tip: Take care to clean all the grit out of the leeks. To prepare these best, insert a sharp vegetable knife an inch from the root of the leek and run the knife all the way to the end. Repeat the process to create a cross pattern in the leek allowing all the grit to be washed away.
Soften the leeks and shallots over a low heat with a little oil. Add the chopped chestnut mushrooms.
Add the wholegrain mustard and stir in. at this time you can add the wine, vermouth and chicken and bring to a boil to burn off the alcohol. Then add the chicken stock and cream as well as a little salt and a generous helping of coarse ground black pepper. Keep this on a medium heat until the liquid has reduced to a thick cream and your mixture is quite dense which will take approximately 30 minutes.
Make ahead tip: If you are cooking this ahead of when you are making the pie, remove from the heat, cover with cling film until cold, transfer to a Tupperware container and refrigerate. I would keep this for 2 to 3 days in the fridge.
Pre-heat your oven to 200C. Transfer the filling to a pie dish and let it cool a little (the cooler the better) before covering.
For this recipe I use ready made puff pastry as it is just as good (if not better) than the one I make and it is significantly less effort.
Flour a clean worksurface and gently roll out the pastry to just over the size of your pie dish.
I like to sprinkle a little coarse ground black pepper evenly to the pastry and press it in as I am rolling out for an extra bit of bite.
Lay the pastry over your pie dish and tuck the pastry around the filling, still letting the rest hang over the dish. Seal the pie to the edge with a little egg wash and flute the edges. Eggwash the whole pie top and make an incision in the centre to let the steam out.
Transfer to the oven for approximately 20 minutes, or until the pie is hot throughout and the pie crust nice and browed.
Serve with baked asparagus or another simple green of your choice with crushed or mashed potatoes.