Pies pies pies

A good pie dish is a rare thing. Even expensive trendy ones often don't have a proper flat edge for your pastry rim; the ones with a curly rim are just ridiculous as it is the pastry which needs to be fluted, not the china. So a deep white one with a real edge seen by chance in a kitchen shop far from home was too good to ignore and it is a joy to own. As soon as we were able to unpack it, it definitely needed to be filled.


We had a chicken and leek pie but it could have been a vegetarian filling (and the dish will be graced with a fruit pie very soon).

Chicken and Leek Pie

Chicken pie in the old days for me was always left over shreds of chicken from a roast and a sauce made from a tin of condensed soup only thinned by half the amount of liquid, using milk.  It sounds horrible but was a favourite and both easy and economical. Times have moved on and anyway it is harder to find good condensed soups so a tasty white sauce made from scratch replaces it now. Some recipes even tell you to roast a whole chicken for one pie but that is taking things too far. This recipe is quite extravagant by my standards, but it provides a large pie with enough satisfying goodness for 6 people or 5 very hungry ones. You can also easily scale it down to fit a smaller dish.

2 chicken breasts
3 leeks
1 clove garlic - optional
Butter
Chicken stock or vegetable stock powder

8 oz Quick Flaky Pastry - or of your choice

A large deep pie dish at least 8 ins in diameter

Oven at No 7/220

1. Put roughly half a pint of hot stock or water made with stock powder into a deep pan and add the chicken pieces which you have previously seasoned with S &P. The chicken does not have to be covered by the liquid but there should be enough to come up to about two thirds of its depth.
2. Bring this up to a slow simmer and let the chicken poach gently for about 20 mins. Leave in the stock to cool.
3. Clean and slice your leeks and soften in butter for several minutes. Add crushed garlic if you like.
4. Put the cooked leeks into a bowl. Take the chicken out of the stock and chop into bite sized pieces. Add these to the bowl and mix well.
5. Now melt a tablespoon of butter in a pan, add the same amount of flour and stir over a gentle heat till it goes grainy. Then add your poaching liquid and whisk vigorously until it boils and thickens. Now add some milk and, if very flush, some cream until it is a smooth sauce.
6. Add to the bowl and stir all together. Taste and season as you think it needs it. If it looks too thick, add a little milk.
7. NB All this can be done well in advance. As it is best to put the pastry on top of a cold surface, it is much better in fact to prepare the filling and let it get really cool first.
8. Roll out your pastry and cover the pie, making a good fluted edge (this is called knocking it up..) and use any left over trimmings to make leaf decorations. Put three slits in the top with a sharp knife. Now it can go back in the fridge for a while or be baked straight away. When you are ready to put it into a hot oven, No 7/200, brush it first with an egg yolk mixed with a teaspoon of cold water and stand the dish on  a baking sheet.
9. Let it have at least 15/ 20 mins before you check that it is browning evenly. If it has started to go too brown at all, turn the oven down. If you have had a pie in the fridge for an hour or more, it will need at least 35 mins to heat the filling properly. You will know when it is ready by the look of the pastry and because there should be bubbling going on.