Savoury Pies are the best winter comfort food, topped with potatoes or pastry I am not fussy but there is something about pulling a bubbling golden pie out of the oven that makes me glad that the evenings are drawing in and the weather getting colder.
Although we haven’t hit proper late autumn / winter weather quite yet I had a hankering for a chicken pie and when I saw that both leeks and mushrooms were on special offer I decided that this was a sign to go for it.
This is a very basic pie, the filling goes straight in to the dish and is topped with a pastry lid, rather than being completely enclosed in pastry.
I made this in a 10” casserole dish
Pastry
1 & ¼ cups of Doves Farm GF plain flour
1 tsp of xanthan gum
¼ tsp of salt
4 ounces of chilled butter, diced or grated
2 tsp of lemon juice
¼ cup of sour cream
Enough ice water to mix.
- Stir together the flour, xanthan gum and salt in a bowl
- Add in the grated or diced butter and rub together until you get the consistency of breadcrumbs
- Stir together to sour cream and the lemon juice and mix in with the dry ingredients
- Add enough of the ice water to get a smooth pastry
- Wrap in cling film and place I the fridge to chill while you are making the filling.
- When your pie filling is ready take the pastry from the fridge and roll it out between two sheets of baking parchment to a size that fits the top of your casserole. Don’t make the pastry too thin, you want a good bit of pastry on your pie.
Chicken Filling
2 chicken breast diced
65 grams of diced bacon. I hate cutting up bacon so I just used one of the small packets of diced pancetta that can be found in Aldi or Tesco
Sour cream. I used a 200ml b but took out ¼ of a cup if that for the pastry.
1 leek, cleaned sliced in a half and cut in to half moons
1 medium onion, diced
6 – 7 good sized mushroom, cleaned and sliced
1 sprig of fresh thyme
200 ml of GF chicken stock
1 tablespoon of olive oil
Preheat the oven to Gas 5
- Heat the oil in a pan over a medium heat and add the onion, leek and mushrooms and cook for a few minutes until softened but not browned.
- Add in the bacon and chicken and cook until the bacon has rendered out all the lovely bacon fat and the chicken is cooked through.
- Stir in the chicken stock and add the sprig of thyme. Bring it to a bubbling simmer and then reduce the heat and leave to cook for fifteen minutes until the stock reduces a bit, you don’t want the pie filling to be too liquid
- Stir in the sour cream and remove from the heat. Take out the thyme and pour the filing in to your casserole/ pie dish. You can butter the edge of the dish where the pastry will rest.
- Take the rolled out pastry lid and place it carefully over the casserole.
- Crimp the edges of the pastry and then make a little slit in the centre of the pie to allow the steam to escape.
- Brush with some milk or a beaten egg and pop in the oven for twenty five minutes or until the pastry is golden and crisp.
Serve this with some sweet petite pois and if it is a really wintery day go for some extra carbs and serve with buttery mashed potatoes.