86. Recipes // Hearty Chicken Pie

Now that it's officially Autumn, I'm looking forwards to trying out some heartier comfort food recipes. The first of these is a hearty chicken pie, but not just any chicken pie... it's a chicken, leek, mushroom and bacon chicken pie. Yum.

Saturday afternoon was my first ever attempt at making puff pastry. Well, at making pastry of any type to be honest! I read a few different recipes, received a couple of tips from helpful Twitter-er-er-er's (?!) including James Morton from Great British Bake Off *swoon* and, kind of, mixed them all together... It didn't exactly go to plan, let's be honest here, it wasn't really puff pastry in the end. It was more like shortcrust pastry, but the fact that I made some form of edible pastry is good enough for me. 

I won't be sharing my pastry recipe as, to be honest, I sort of winged it. I chucked some flour and butter in a bowl, mixed it a bit, rolled it a bit, folded it a bit, chilled it and then rolled it out again... it was very haphazard, and I don't know how it even managed to work! So, let's focus on the filling of the pie instead which was delicious (not that I mean to blow my own trumpet!)

Please excuse the burnt edges and the poor quality phone-camera photograph...

Ingredients

400g chicken breast, diced

1 large onion, sliced

2 large leeks, thickly sliced

Handful of button mushrooms, sliced

180ml white wine

150ml double cream

1tsp mustard

1tsp dried taragon

150ml chicken stock (hot)

300g bacon lardons or sliced bacon

Black pepper to season

1 egg

Oil

Method

1. Heat the oil and fry the onions and leeks until softened,

2. Add the chicken and bacon and fry until browned,

3. Add the mushrooms and fry until slightly soft (not browned though)

4. Pour in the chicken stock and wine and simmer for 5 minutes,

5. Pour in the cream, bring to the boil and then simmer for 5 minutes,

6. Add any seasoning; e.g. the taragon, mustard and black pepper,

7. Leave to cool for 20-30 minutes,

8. Once cooled, pour into a pie dish and cover with pastry (shop bought or homemade),

9. Heat your oven to Gas Mark 7 or 200-220 degrees celsius,

10. Brush the top of the pie with egg and snip a tiny slit in the middle for the air to escape,

11. Cook in the oven for 30-40 minutes or until golden on top

Serve with mashed potato and vegetables.

I really loved this pie; it is honestly one of my favourite savoury recipes that I've cooked and I was really pleased with how it came together. It went down a real treat with S, my mum and my brother. I just wish I'd taken more photographs before it was scoffed!

The initial inspiration for this recipe came from Jamie Oliver's chicken and leek pie recipe which can be found here.