Miss Jodie over at Ric Rac is extremely busy acting as nurse and right arm to her poor hubby who tripped and broke his good arm so now he has one completely paralysed left arm and a completely immobilised broken right arm.
Thinking of poor Jodie I thought I would share with you all a fail safe super easy meal that you can eat straight away,reheat and freeze....make enough and you would not have to cook again for weeks!
I tried this recipe when I was sick with the flu and in need of something warm and comforting. It was really easy as it did not call for me to make a roux like other pie recipes and it was dairy free!
Ingredients (serves 4)
1 tbs oil
4 (about 850g) chicken breast fillets, cut into 4cm pieces
250g bacon rashers, rind removed, coarsely chopped
1 leek, ends trimmed, cut into 1cm-thick slices
2 garlic cloves, crushed
50g (1/3 cup) plain flour
500ml (2 cups) salt-reduced chicken stock - this is super important as I stupidly thought there wouldn't be too much of a difference with regular stock + salt reduced..... WRONG
4 large sprigs fresh thyme
2 tbs chopped fresh continental parsley
1 x 375g block puff pastry, thawed
1 egg, lightly whisked
1.Heat the oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat. Add half the chicken and cook, turning occasionally, for 2-3 minutes or until browned. Transfer to a plate. Repeat with remaining oil and chicken, reheating pan between batches.
As you end up cooking the chicken in the pie filling you do not need to cook the chicken the whole way through yet. This helps stop the chicken from being over cooked and too tough.
2.Add the bacon, leek and garlic to the pan and cook, stirring, for 5 minutes or until the leek softens and the bacon is slightly golden.
Add the flour and cook, stirring, for 30 seconds. Remove from heat. Gradually stir in the stock until well combined. Add the chicken and thyme to the pan. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, for 8 minutes or until the mixture thickens and comes to the boil. Taste and season with pepper. NO SALT as you have bacon and the salt in the stock.... Set aside for 1 hour to cool slightly. Stir in the parsley. Transfer to a bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Place in the fridge for 2 hours to cool completely.
Important note- if you are hungry and this smells too good to wait you can skip the rest of the steps below and whip a bit of puff pastry into the oven on its own, spoon the pie mix into a bowl and place a piece of cooked puff pastry on top. VOILA!
3.Preheat oven to 220°C. Roll out the pastry until 2cm wider than the top of a round 23cm (base measurement) pie dish. Place the pie dish, top-side down, on the pastry, and use it as a guide to cut a 1cm-wide strip from the edge of the pastry. Reserve the pastry strip.
Spoon the chicken mixture into the pie dish.
Place a pie funnel in the centre of the dish. WTF is a pie funnel and who has one?
Brush the edge of the dish with a little egg. Use the pastry strip to line the edge of the dish. Brush with a little of the remaining egg.
Place the pastry disc on top of the dish. Press the edges to seal. I used a fork to create ridges around the edge of the pastry make sure to cut a X through the pastry to let the steam out.Brush the top of the pastry with remaining egg. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until puffed and golden.
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