The Ultimate Chicken Pie

Let me start with two points! What makes this chicken pie the ultimate chicken pie and why this is my recipe and not the one that I found in a magazine 20 odd years ago.

Firstly this pie is your whole meal; meat, veg and carbs, it is full of hearty flavours and it looks magnificent when you pull it out of the oven. It generally does collapse when I cut it open, but that is neither here nor there!

The second is that this recipe has been developed over the years and has grown from the simple but still tasty pie in a magazine to something quite fantastic!

Here we go:

1 large Kumara (sweet potato in other parts of the world) I tend to use golden Kumara as the red is quite dry.

1 cooked chicken. I generally grab a cooked chook from the supermarket

6 to 8 rashers of bacon

1 large or 2 small red onions

A splash of red wine vinegar

1 or 2 cloves of garlic

Chopped parsley

Chicken stock - cube or gel 

More chicken stock - liquid ½ cup..ish

Ground pepper

Gravy powder or cornflour. (I use Bisto)

A good splash of either red or white wine (actually more like a few glugs rather than a splash)

Silverbeet or spinach

Grated cheese

Blue cheese (optional)

4 sheets of flakey puff pastry

Springform cake tin (essential)

Remove the pastry sheets from the freezer to thaw.

Kumara

Peel the kumara and slice into rounds about 1 to 2 cm thick. Lay them on baking paper and either spray or drizzle with oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and roast at 190 degrees celsius for around 45 minutes or until lightly brown. Remember to turn them over halfway through roasting.

Chicken

Break the flesh off the chicken and shred with your fingers.

Onions

I like to use red onions as I find them to be less acidic than brown onions.

Slice the onions and pop into a warm pan with a small amount of rice bran oil, salt, and pepper.  Slowly cook the onions on a very low heat. I use a simmer mat to create a low and even heat. If you can get the temperature really low you can leave the onions cooking for up to 45 minutes with the odd stir. Please note that I am cooking on a gas hob. I am not sure how this would work on an electric hob. A handy hint is to hold the gas knob in to turn on the heat, continue to hold it in, and slowly bring it back around to high, and then just before it gets to off the heat drops to a lower than low heat. 

When the onions begin to soften and change colour add about a tablespoon of red wine vinegar and continue to simmer until they are sweet. At this stage, I usually add the garlic either finely chopped or through the garlic crusher. You don’t want the garlic to brown too much as it will become bitter. You can cook the onions for less time and they will still be okay, but the longer you cook them the sweeter they get, try not to let them brown too much.

Chop the bacon into bite-size pieces and pop the bacon rashers into the pan with the onions and garlic. I find scissors to be the most effective bacon chopping device!

Deglaze the pan with some red wine if you have it, white wine will also be okay. And turn up the heat as you stir everything together making sure to lift anything that remains on the bottom of the pan.

Add the parsley and the chicken stock gel or cube and liquid and pepper. You want to have enough liquid to create a thick sauce that will coat the chicken rather than float the chicken.

Once the liquid is simmering add your choice of gravy powder or you could just use cornflour. Warning! Cornflour and some gravy thickeners will need to be mixed with a little bit of water before you add it to the pan to stop the lumps! Sprinkle the powder (or your cornflour concoction) and stir until it is thick and coats the spoon. If it gets too thick add some more liquid stick. Toss in the chicken and allow it to warm through. Don’t let it boil too rapidly as your sauce will become gluggy and eventually disappear or burn. You just want to warm the chicken.

Silverbeet

Wash and check for creepy crawlies, then slice into 1 cm pieces.

If you have never grown silverbeet you should give it a try. Just bung it in the ground and mother nature does the rest

Pastry

Grease the cake tin lightly and cut a round of pastry for the top and for the bottom. Then some strips for the side, but make them wider than the depth of the tin so you can squish the pastry pieces together. Line the cake tin leaving the top until you fill the pie.

Layering

Place the roasted kumara on the bottom of the pie in one layer.

Spoon the chicken mixture over the kumara.

Load the uncooked sliced spinach onto the chicken. You may think that you need to add less silverbeet but you want it to be bursting. It will reduce in size considerably on cooking. 

Sprinkle the grated cheese and crumble the blue cheese over the top. Then jam on the lid using the overhanging sides to seal the lid on. Use wet fingers like glue to make the edges sticky so the two pastries stick together. Brush with beaten egg, place the cake tin onto an oven tray (leakage), and put into the hot oven until the top is brown and shiny.

Removal

If you are serving this to guests you may like to take this extra step. 

Remove the springform side and brush the pie sides with more beaten egg, then pop it bake in the oven (on a tray) for a few more minutes. This will make your pastry more stable.

It is best to let the pie sit for a minute or two to let it settle before you cut it. Be prepared for the deliciousness to cascade onto the tray when you cut it open. 

This is your whole meal, serve it with a tasty relish or chutney. See Erynn’s Tamarillo Chutney recipe on this blog.