Three-Star Pie

Life got in the way of my challenge of a new recipe a week.  Back on track though and on Sunday I made a chicken and mushroom pie.  It's from the Speight's Southern Man Cookbook.  Speight's is a mainstream New Zealand brewery from Dunedin.  It's famous and known for being the hard-working, rugged man's beer.  In 1999, the first Speight's Ale House opened, and they serve great food - hearty, wholesome, perfect for everyone.  Highlights are the Chicken Parcels, Vege Filo Parcels, their lamb shanks and Blue n' Gold (fist and chips) and many more for that matter.

This pie was pretty easy to make and has a really yummy flavour without being too rich or heavy.  I had my 2nd serve for tea tonight and have to say I think it tasted better than when I had it straight from the oven.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup flour
• salt and freshly ground pepper
• 500g skinless chicken breast, cut into 2cm chunks (I used half breast, half thigh meat)
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 25g butter
• 1 onion, finely chopped or 2 small leeks, white part only, sliced
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 125g mushrooms, sliced
• 1/3 cup white wine
• 1 cup chicken stock
• 1/2 cup cream (I used cream cheese as I had it in the fridge already)
• 1 teaspoon wholeseed mustard (I used about 2 teaspoons)
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh herbs, tarragon is good (I used basil, sage and pizza thyme)
• 1 tablespoon chopped parsley (I didn't have any)
• 4 sheets pre-rolled puff pastry (I used a 400g block)
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten, for glaze (I used one and it was enough)

Method:
Put flour, salt and pepper in a bowl and mix.  Add chicken and toss well.  Heat oil and butter in a large fry pan over a moderate to high heat.  Shake excess flour off the chicken and cook in batches until golden and sealed (not cooked all the way through).  Transfer chicken to a plate and set aside.

Place the onion or leeks and garlic in the frying pan and cook gently until soft, about 5 minutes. Add the mushrooms and cook for 1 minute.  Add wine and boil for 1 minute then add the stock and cream and simmer for a further 5 minutes.

Remove from the heat, add chicken, mustard and herbs and set aside to cool. 

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius.  Cut pastry to line bases and tops of 4 x 10-11cm pie tins (I used one 24cm pie dish).  Spoon the filling into pastry cases.  Brush edges of pastry with egg glaze.  Place tops on the pies and seal with a fork or crimp with your thumb.  Brush tops with egg glaze.  Make 2-3 slits with a sharp knife in the top of each pie to allow steam to escape.

Place pies in the preheated oven and cook for 35 minutes or until golden.  (I could have cooked my pie for about 5-10 minutes longer as the base isn't quite cooked enough - probably as it's pyrex so thicker surface than pie tins).

The cooled filling in the pastry base

 

Cooked pie - the filling thickened when cooled slightly