Roast Chicken Pie

Hey, we’ve all been there. Roast chicken on Sunday can last a few days; I like to recycle the dish into a curry or a “Blanquette” ( https://hungrybreton.wordpress.com/2015/03/24/blanquette/) but this time, I wanted to do something new, like a pie. I love the idea of using whatever is in the fridge and this time, I was in luck; no trip to the local shop, this is pure survival stuff that will see our wee cottage fed for another couple of days… I had 1/2 a savoy cabbage, a leek, an onion, few peas and a carrot. I thinly sliced the lot of them and sautéed them with a bit of cubed pancetta I had bought at the end of December… Once every ingredients sweated with a bit of salt, I made a cheesy white wine béchamel sauce… Here is the wee story of how it went…

For the flaky pastry:

• 120g of strong organic flour
• 80g of frozen grated salted butter

How to:

Just put 120g of organic white flour in a bowl and grate in 80g of frozen  salted butter( 45 min in the freezer). With a table spoon, stir the butter shavings and the flour together. Add in 4 to 5 tbsp of cold water and keep stirring with the spoon in between. Use your hand to finish but don’t let it go too wet! Put the dough ball in cling film and then in the fridge to rest for one or two hours.

For the ingredients:

• 1/2 a small savoy cabbage
• 1 small leek
• 1 small red onion
• a handful of good frozen peas
• 1 clove of garlic
• 100g of diced pancetta

How to:

Thinly slice all the vegetables and gently sweat in olive oil with a bit of salt and pepper. Then allow to completely cool…

For the cheesy Béchamel sauce:

You’ll need:

• 100g of salted butter
• a small handful of organic white flour
• 150g of Comté or Gruyére ( or a good farmhouse cheddar)
• 10cl of dry white wine
• Milk to texture
• Black pepper from the mill

How to:

Melt the butter on low heat, then add the flour. While you stir, keep adding the milk and white wine; keep tasting until you feel that the flour is cooked. Too thick? More milk and wine but keep stirring over that low heat. Once the sauce looks “stable”, grate in the cheese until melted and also allow to cool… Once all this is cold enough, and using a spatula, pour the sauce onto the ingredients…

Cut 2/3 of the pastry and roll; lay the bottom in a buttered and floured oven round dish, then pour the whole thing into the pastry… Like so…

Then , roll the last 1/3 of the pastry and seal the deal; egg wash the edged and cover with the remaining sheet of pastry. Egg wash the top for a nice finish. Egg washing means beating up an egg and brushing a pastry for a golden finish.

The idea behind this pie, was to find a way to have something moist but not soggy. Bake at 200c for 25 to 30 minutes…

Flip it over before serving, see, no soggy bottom there…

Then came the time to serve, I would recommend fresh young spinach leaves, but from there I will let you travel alone; after all, it’s Monday, what could go wrong right?

And so it goes…

Keep Well and Eat Happy

 

Franck