Chicken Pot Pie recipe

Recipe by Claire W 14 March 2009 No Comments

Individual Chicken pies in a creamy sauce

Serves: 4
Preparation time: 1 hour, including poaching the chicken thighs
Cooking time: 30 mins

Ingredients:

600g/1lb 5oz skinless chicken thighs
1 small carrot, halved
1 small onion, halved
1 bay leaf
A few parsley stalks
6 black peppercorns
25g/1oz butter
25g/1oz plain flour
2tbsp double cream
100g/ 3.5oz each frozen peas and sweetcorn
2tbsp freshly chopped parsley
275g/10oz ready-made shortcrust pastry
1 egg, beaten

You will need 4 300ml/1/2 pint ovenproof dishes

Preparation:

Put the chicken thighs into a pan with the carrot, onion, bay leaf, parsley stalks and peppercorns.

Cover with cold water. Bring to just under the boil, then simmer, skimming, for 15 – 20 minutes until cooked.

Remove the cooked chicken with a slotted spoon and set aside.

Reserve 400ml (14fl oz) of the poaching liquid and discard the stock vegetables.

Melt the butter in a pan over a medium heat, stir in the flour. Cook for 1 minute, remove from the heat and gradually stir in the reserved stock.

Cook over a gentle heat, stirring, until thickened. Simmer for 5 minutes to cook off the flour, add cream and cook slowly for a further 5 minutes.

Take the chicken meat from the bones. Stir into the sauce with the peas, sweetcorn and parsley. Set aside to cool a little.

Preheat the oven to 200C (180C fan)/390F/Gas mark 6.

Roll out the pastry to 3mm (1/8 inch) thick. Use the top of one of the ovenproof basins as a guide and cut out lids of pastry 2cm (3/4 inches) larger than the basins to use as lids and set aside.

Lightly butter the dishes and divide the chicken mixture among the dishes. Dampen the pastry edges with water and use it to top the basins, folding over the edges. Cut a slit in the pastry to allow steam to escape. Use trimmings to decorate the pies. Brush with egg and bake for 30 minutes until golden and the filling is piping hot.