Chicken pie
2020-02-14 Comments
This recipe will make 4 portions or 2 if you are extremely hungry. It might remind you of childhood memories of home cooked meals or if you dine out a lot, then something from a countryside gastro pub.
Ingredients
- 1 teaspoon oil
- 200g Lardons or bacon bits
- 1 small onion, diced into medium size pieces
- 500g Chicken breast or boneless thighs, cubed into 2cm pieces
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
- 100ml milk
- 1 level tablespoon of plain flour
- 1 packet of shop bought ready rolled puff pastry
- 1 egg, beaten for egg wash
Method
Before we begin, I just want to establish the pie dishes I've chosen to use with the amount of filling that will be made. I have a pie dish which measures length, width, depth: 18 x 12 x 5.5cm but obviously anything with a similiar shape and size will suffice.
- Heat up the oil in a large frying pan on medium heat, then fry up the lardons or bacon bits. Cook for about 5 minutes so the meat is still plump, not crispy.
- Once the lardons are ready, throw in the onions and cook for a further 5 minutes, make sure the onions aren't burnt.
- Add the chicken in, season with pepper, no extra salt needed as there is enough in the lardons. Cover with a lid and cook for about 8 minutes.
- Once 8 minutes are up, take the lid off and add the milk.
- Put in the flour. Stir through the meat until all the flour is mixed in and the sauce will thicken up. Add a little more milk or flour, if needed. You are looking for a thick sauce for the pie filling.
- Turn off the heat. Allow to cool for 15 minutes.
- Heat up the oven to 180C, for 10 minutes to warm the oven up.
- Tip half the contents of the meat filling into a pie dish, the other half will fill another pie dish of the same dimensions.
- Lay out the puff pastry and cut down a strip slightly wider than the width of the pie dish. Place over the pie dish and trim of the excess pastry.
- I hate to see the trimmings go to waste so I cut them into triangles and place them on top of the pastry lid and crimp the edges down with a fork.
- Brush the pastry lid with the egg wash.
- Place the pies into the oven and bake for 15 minutes on 180C, then turn the temperature down to 150C and bake for an extra 20 minutes.
- Once out of the oven, leave to cool down slightly for 15 minutes and serve with a side dish of your choice.
Here's one I had earlier, from the picture you can see that it was very hard for me to pause and take a photo...
Bon apetit!