Chicken and Vegetable Pie
Chicken pie is a great way to use up leftover meat from a roast chicken. Its also a really comforting meal in the evenings when its cold outside. If I make pie on a weeknight I normally serve it just with some steamed vegetables, no potatoes or anything, just to keep the calorie count down a bit. I never think of pie as an exact science; the perfect pie depends on many variables from your oven, the dish you use, to which selection of vegetables you use.
Ingredients (serves 2):
150-200g leftover roast chicken, chopped
4 mushrooms, chopped
6 florets of frozen broccoli
milk (no more than 300ml)
chicken gravy granules (I use Bisto)
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 tsp dried parsley
1 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp onion granules
1 tbspn olive oil
125g ready made puff pastry (1/4 of a 500g block)
Method:
Put the oven to heat up to 200 C.
You will need a small pie dish – mine is 8″x5″.
Get a medium sized saucepan and heat the oil in it.
Add the cooked chicken and fry it in the oil.
When the chicken is starting to go a bit brown and crispy, add the mushrooms.
Don’t let the chicken burn – you might need to turn the heat down a little.
Add in the frozen broccoli florets.
Then immediately add in the milk. You want to add enough milk to not quite cover all the ingredients in the pan.
Add the garlic, herbs and onion granules.
Add some gravy granules, say 1 tablespoon, and stir them in.
Then leave the mixture to cook for 10 minutes.
While it’s cooking, roll out the pastry to the size of your dish. There will be a pastry lid only, no bottom.
After 10 minutes, check the consistency of the filling. Think of the consistency of pie filling – and remember that your filling will dry up a bit while it’s being cooked in the oven. You want it slightly too runny when you put it in the dish, but not so runny that the pastry sinks into it. If its a bit thin, add more chicken granules – slowly – and stir after each few granules. Err on the side of too runny rather than too thick a sauce.
Pour the filling into the dish and pop the pastry on top.
Put a slit in the pastry for the steam to escape, and if you want, brush the top of the pastry with oil or butter.
Cook the pie in the oven for 30 minutes.
Variations:
I generally use the vegetables I happen to have hanging around.
Onions and leeks also go well – put these in at the beginning and caramelize them a bit before putting the chicken in. Omit the onion granules later.
Asparagus is also a favorite of mine – put this in just before the milk is added. It’s nicest when it’s in season though – May/June time.
Peas and sweetcorn also work well – again add these just before the milk.
I would avoid things like carrot, broccoli and cauliflower from raw – last time I tried raw broccoli it didn’t cook properly and I ended up with hard bits in the pie. Not good. The frozen broccoli just melts into the pie.
