Chicken Pie

Chicken pie is a great way to use leftover chicken but you can also use uncooked chicken breasts. Of course this recipe can also be used with leftover turkey at Christmas time.

The filling is so tasty with the flavours of the onion, bacon, thyme, stock and chicken. The sauce shouldn’t be too thick when you are spooning it into the pie dish as you will want some sauce in the finished dish. Make it the consistency of a soup.

I often make extra pastry when making tart and then use this for the pie as it speeds up the prep work. Pastry will last for 24 hours in your fridge. You can also freeze pastry easily.

When making pastry feel free to substitute lard instead of some of the butter – say 40g lard and 85g butter.

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Chicken Pie

Prep Time 20 minutes minutes

Cook Time 1 hour hour

Servings 4

Ingredients

• 225 g plain flour
• 125 g butter
• 50 ml cold water
• 1 tbsp rapeseed oil
• 500 g leftover cooked chicken (or 4 chicken breasts) (chopped into cubes)
• Small packet of pancetta or bacon pieces
• 1 onion (chopped)
• 150 g button mushrooms
• Handful of thyme sprigs or dried thyme
• 2 tbsp plain flour
• 200 ml milk
• 1 tbsp mustard
• 400 ml stock
• 1 egg (beaten)

Instructions

• Sieve the flour into a bowl
• Cube the butter and add to the flour
• Use your fingertips to rub the butter into the flour until you have a mixture that resembles coarse breadcrumbs with no large lumps of butter remaining. Try to work quickly so that it does not become greasy.
• Using a knife, stir in just enough of the cold water to bind the dough together
• Let the dough to rest in the fridge while you start work on the pie filling
  
• Heat the oil in a large, frying-pan.
• If using uncooked chicken then season the chicken with salt and pepper and fry for 5-8 minutes until golden brown, turning occasionally.
• Lift the chicken onto a plate and add the bacon into the pan. Fry for 5 minutes until crisp.
• Add the onion, mushrooms and thyme, then fry on a high heat for another 5 minutes until the onions start to colour.
• Add the flour into the pan and cook, stirring, for 1 min.
• Gradually stir or whisk in the stock, followed by the milk, then add the chicken back to the pan. Add the mustard.
• Heat oven to 220C/fan 200C/gas 7
• Bring to the boil, then simmer for 15 minutes.
• Spoon the filling into a large pie or baking dish (approx 20 x 30cm)
  
• On a floured surface, roll the pastry to 1/3cm thick.
• Lift the the pastry over the pie, using the rolling pin to help. Gently press the edges with your fingers and trim with a sharp knife.
• Brush lightly with egg to glaze, then bake for 25-30 minutes or until the pastry is risen and dark golden brown.
• Serve with mashed potato and steamed vegetables