Mama’s Chicken Pie

Of course as soon as the weather turned my throat began to feel scratchy so, today I’ve been eating mountains of fruit for free (courtesy of my office) and drinking gallons of lemon, ginger and honey tea. Tonight I’ll be doing a eucalyptus inhalation before bed and I’ll be taking some zinc in the morning. Try and beat that germs! Instead of going with Jewish penicillin (chicken soup) I decided that chicken pie would work equally as well and I definitely needed some pastry in me. I used my Mum’s recipe – I love it because the sauce is beautifully silky. A lot of chicken pies have a creamy sauce but I find it too rich, this version is much more comforting. She used to make it for us in mini, individual pie dishes, if I had little dishes I would definitely cook little ones – everything is better in miniature.

Pre-heat your oven to 200c.

You will need:

4 Chicken thighs (left over roast chicken is perfect for this recipe)

4 small Potatoes

2 Leeks

Tablespoon Marsala (sherry or sweet white wine will do)

500ml Chicken Stock

1/2 Lemon

Desert spoon of flour

1 egg

Jus Roll puff pastry (after work I don’t have the energy to make pastry and, in all honesty, I’m not very good at it)

Firstly, chop your chicken into bite size chunks and fry until golden. Set aside. In a pan add your 2 chopped leeks and some butter and gently fry until softened. Add the flour and cook it for about a minute.

Prepare your stock and pour it in with a tablespoon of white wine/Marsala (in my case a generous glug) and the juice of a lemon.

Chop your potato into small little chunks and add to the leeks.

Throw your chicken in and leave on a medium heat. Measure your pie dish on your rolled out pastry and cut around it, leaving an extra 1/2 cm – pastry shrinks. Line your pie tin with leftover strips of pastry and then pour in your filling. If you have a pie support, pop it in.

Cut a small cross in the middle of your pastry lid and place on top.

With the leftover pastry you can cut out shapes to stick on top or just put it on a baking tray with some grated cheese. Yum. Beat an egg and brush the top of your pie. Cook for 30 minutes. Easy as pie (sorry).