This recipe came from Alastair Hendy, and is one I've been wanting to cook for a while. It makes for a handsome big dish that gave us a rich, warming supper on such a cold, snowy night, and we'll have the leftovers for lunch tomorrow. There are several stages, so I saved it for a day off!
First, poach a free-range chicken and then strip all the meat. Make a thick,creamy sauce with some of the stock, cream and a butter and flour roux (about 400mls althogether) and I added some chopped chives. Mix into the shredded chicken along with about 150g of finely chopped ham and a handful of button mushrooms, sliced and sauteed. Check the seasoning and allow to cool. Line a loose-bottomed cake tin with good all-butter puff pastry and put the chicken filling in. Top with more pastry, seal well, and bake at about 170C for an hour. Allow to settle in the tin for about 10 minutes and then remove, leaving you with a deep golden pie of deliciousness! As I say, time-consuming but soooooo worth it! The diet can start tomorrow (yeah, right)
where do you get your good all butter puff pastry? this was a nigella-conundrum we never really solved!
ReplyDeleteHelen, I used Waitrose 'Cooks' Ingredients' all-butter puf pastry. Frozen, it comes in an elefant red box with black lettering, and you get two blacks. I used one whole block to line the base and half of the remainder for the topping. Alternatively, Alastair uses Quick and Easy Flaky Pastry from Delia, but I couldn't be bothered with the faff - it was all about the juicy filling for me! But you can find Delia's recipe at http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/type-of-dish/pastry/quick-and-easy-flaky-pastry.html if you wanted to try it.
ReplyDeleteplease excuse my terrible typing - rather than coming in an 'elefant' box, amusing though that might be, I actually meant 'elegant'. You also get two 'blocks' rather than two 'blacks' which sounds like the sort of politically incorrect thing my old Granny might have said. Still, hope my hopeless tapping at the keyboard made you smile - note to self: READ before hitting 'post comment'
ReplyDelete'two blacks in an elefant box' - sorry, I am still chuckling to myself.........
ReplyDeleteIt sounds absolutely gorgeous. What did you poach the chicken in though?
ReplyDeleteJoy: just water, with a halved onion, a carrot and some, frankly, manky celery. This created the most delicious stock which gave body and depth of flavour to the sauce, and also made some great soup the next day. It was a most delicious pie!
ReplyDeleteLOL - manky celery is great. I think celery is one of those secret ingredients that often gets missed out but which makes such a difference to a soup or stock. It seems to bring out other flavours.
ReplyDelete