In an exhaustive survey* I have been told that this Chicken Pie is pretty special. It takes a little while to make, about 45 minutes to prep everything and then another 35 mins or so cooking time, but then I am quite slow and I like to potter while I cook. Well worth it on a cold winter’s night anyway, and because filo pastry has less fat than other pastry (I think…) you can have twice as much 🙂
It’s a modification of the Chicken Pie recipe on the phili website, but I like mine better.
You can eat the pie cold – or reheated – for a couple of days afterwards. Have to be honest, I’ve never tried freezing it (I’m far too greedy for that) but I can’t see a reason why you wouldn’t be able to.
*of my mates
You will need;
A few knobs of butter and some olive oil
About 400g chicken, chopped into cubes
3 leeks, chopped
5 rashers of streaky smoked bacon, chopped
200ml (ish) chicken stock
1 heaped tbsp plain flour
125ml white wine (plus another glass or two for the chef…)
About ½ tub of Phili
Small handful of tarragon
Packet of filo pastry (Mary Berry doesn’t make hers from scratch and there’s no earthly reason anyone else would either)
Veg to serve
What to do:
- Pour yourself a glass of wine to fortify yourself for the pie-making ahead
- Put a lug of olive oil and a knob of butter in a deep pan
- Chop the chicken and fry it off, put it to one side when you’ve done this
- In the same pan, fry off the bacon, then put this to one side as well
- Then in the same pan (with all the delicious bacon juices) add another knob of butter and put your chopped leeks in, cook these with a lid on for about 5 minutes, stirring sporadically, until they’ve gone soft
- Add your flour to the leeks (and maybe another knob of butter, you can’t really have too much butter) and stir this for about 2 minutes to ‘cook off’ the flour
- Then add your wine and stock, bring it to a simmer and stir this for about 5-7 minutes or until the leeky mixture starts to thicken up
- Add your phili and stir it into the sauce, then add the tarragon. It’s quite a strong, liquoricy taste so if in doubt be cautious with the amount you put in, you can always add more. If the sauce is a little too thick then add some water (or milk) to loosen it up a bit
- Then put back your chicken and bacon, stir and taste – add salt & pepper at this point as obviously the bacon and stock will be salty so you might not need much. Also add more tarragon if you like
- Your concoction should be smelling and tasting awesome, so pour yourself another glass of wine, you deserve it!
- Sort out your filo – I use a 10” by 2” pie dish and use 4 layers of filo pastry for the base and 1.5/two for the top. Brush each piece of pastry with oil or melted butter before putting the next one down. I believe it’s customary to use a pastry brush for this. I, however, use my fingers. Sometimes life is just too short.
- Scrunch up the filo on the top of the pie to make it look all attractive and that (also, it hides a multitude of sins)
- Bake for 30-35mins at 190C/Gas Mark 5 until the pastry is golden brown and lovely looking.
- Leave it for about 10 minutes after it’s done in the oven to minimise the risk of collapse when you take it out of the dish, it’ll still be lovely and hot
- Eat, with a congratulatory glass of wine and some veg & mash
The Hungry Swans 