Meal Twenty One - Chicken & Leek Pie

I asked Sam whether there was anything that she particularly wanted to eat and her first suggestion was chicken pie.

I've made chicken pies in the past and they have been tasty, but I wanted to try someone else's recipe to see what else was out there.

Today I opted to go for Nigel Slater's Chicken & Leek Pie.

The difference between my pie and this pie is the way the chicken is cooked. I tend to brown my chicken off in a frying pan along with the bacon and leeks, but Nigel instructs us to poach the chicken in milk infused with bay leaves, peppercorns, onion and then add to the bacon and leek later on and I will tell you what; it is an absolutely amazing smell in the kitchen!

The sauce is then made up of the strained milk along with flour and Dijon mustard. The mustard adds a real tang to the flavour, and along with the all-butter puff pastry, you can't really go wrong.

Ingredients:

600g chicken thighs

10 pepper corns

1 small onion

2 bay leaves

milk (enough to cover the chicken pieces)

5-6 rashers smoked bacon, cubed

butter

3 leeks, sliced into 1/2 inch discs

3 tbsp plain flour

3 tsp Dijon mustard

2 x 375g packs of all-butter puff pastry

1 egg

Method:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200 deg. celsius.

2. In a saucepan, add the chicken, peppercorns, onion and bay leaves. Cover with milk. Bring to the boil and then simmer for 25 minutes until the chicken is cooked.

3. Meanwhile fry the bacon in some butter (approx. 30g). Add the sliced leeks and allow to soften.

4. When the chicken is cooked, remove from the milk and flake into the pan with the leeks and bacon.

5. Add the flour and cook through for a couple of minutes before adding the milk through a sieve to remove the peppercorns, bay leaves and onion. Add the Dijon mustard and stir constantly to make a thick sauce.

6. Roll out the sheets of puff pastry to a rectangular shape at a pound coin thickness. Lay the first sheet in a large ovenproof dish and spoon in the filling. Lay the second sheet over the top and crimp together.

7. Beat the egg and brush over the pie topping. Bake in the oven for approximately 35 minutes.