Flaky pastry, chicken and leek filling rich with the aroma of thyme and some fresh green beans for the side. Sounds like a great winter night to me!
I made this dish (adapted from the Donna Hay Winter 2011 issue) when we had guests over for dinner (Hi S and D!). The reviews were positive and there were even leftovers for my lunch!
Details
30-40 min
40 min
1 h, 10 min
Ingredients
- 2 cups Plain flour
- 1 cup FInely grated parmesan
- 150 grams cold butter, chopped
- 1 teaspoon sea salt flakes
- 1 egg
- 1 tablespoon cold milk
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 6 chicken thigh fillets, chopped (about 900g)
- 40 grams butter
- 2 small leeks, sliced
- 2 cloves garlic, crushed
- 2 tablespoons thyme leaves
- 1/4 cup plain flour
- 2 cups milk
- sea salt and pepper
- Egg or milk wash
Directions
- Prepare your shortcrust parmesan pastry. The recipe says to prepare twice this much, but I'm sure I only did one quantity and it was sufficient.
- Place the 2 cups fo flour, cheese, 150g of butter and salt into a food processor and process for 1-2 minutes until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.
- Add the egg and milk and process for another 2 minutes until a smooth dough forms.
- Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 180*.
- In a large frying pan heat the olive oil over a medium heat.
- Cook the chicken in batches until golden and cooked through.
- Remove from the pan and set aside, keeping warm.
- Turn the heat down slightly.
- Add the butter, leeks, garlic and thyme to the pan and cook for around 7-8 minutes or until softened.
- Add the flour and cook out the flour taste for about 2 minutes.
- Then add the milk, salt and pepper and cook for another 3 minutes, stirring, until thickened and no lumps.
- Return the chicken to the pan and refrigerate until completely cool.
- Try to avoid dunking bread into the mixture while it is cooling on the bench. Fail but enjoy the delicious taste of failure.
- Take your pastry out of the fridge and split in half.
- Lightly grease your 31cm pie tin (cooking spray works fine).
- Roll half of the pastry out between 2 sheets of non-stick baking paper (this makes it much easier to line the tin). Your want your pastry to be around 3mm thick.
- Line your pie tin with the pastry and push into edges.
- Fill with the cold chicken mixture.
- Roll the remaining pastry out between the sheets of baking paper to 3mm thick.
- Place on top of the pie and trim any excess pastry. Use excess pastry to make crispy decorations on top of the pie (optional).
- Brush with an egg or milk wash and bake for 35-40 minutes until the pastry is flaky and golden.
We went mulberry picking the other day. Foraging in local parks and community land is fun, free and easy if you know what you’re looking for. We’ve been waiting for these mulberries to ripen for what seems like an eternity, but this weekend we were fortunate. It did require some dexterity on J’s part, as the bushes had been stripped on the easily accessible side, so all the remaining ripe berries were overhanging the creek. We persevered and ended up with about 500g of mulberries. Not really enough to make jam, but the perfect amount for mulberry pie.
You’ll have to excuse the picture of the pie – it was delicious, but I haven’t quite mastered my pastry yet. This pastry is extremely short, which means it was very crumbly and quite difficult to roll out. I do think it’s worth the extra time and energy to make your own pastry, however if that’s too intimidating, store-bought will also work.
If you don’t have access to wild mulberry bushes, other types of berries would work well. You might need to adjust the sugar levels depending on the natural sweetness of the berries. Strawberries are in season in Brisbane at the moment and they are deliciously sweet. I would probably reduce the sugar if using them.
Ingredients
- 2 1/2 cups Flour
- 250 grams Butter (unsalted), chilled and chopped into cubes
- 1 tsp Salt
- 1 tsp Sugar
- Ice cold water (enough to bring the dough together, not more than 1/4 cup)
- 3 cups Mulberries
- 1 1/4 cups White sugar
- 1/4 cup Flour
- 2 tbsps Butter
- 1 tbsp Milk
Directions
For the pastry
- Combine flour, butter, salt and sugar in a food processor.
- Pulse until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
- Slowly add ice water, one tablespoon at a time, and continue to pulse. The dough should start to form a ball and hold itself together.
- Turn the dough out onto plastic wrap. Split into two pieces and wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
- Remove from fridge and allow to warm up slightly.
- Lightly flour your bench and roll out into two large circles.
For the pie
- Preheat oven to 200*.
- In a large bowl, mix berries with sugar and flour.
- Spray a pie dish with cooking oil. Line the bottom of the dish with one of the circles of dough.
- Add the berry and sugar mixture to the pie dish.
- Dot berries with butter.
- Cover the berries with the remaining pastry. You could try a lattice top - but it's more difficult than it looks!
- Brush the top of the pie with milk.
- Let the pie rest in the fridge for 30 minutes.
- Bake pie in the preheated oven for 15 minutes. I recommend putting your pie on another baking tray to catch any sugar syrup spills so you don't have to clean your oven.
- Lower oven temperature to 175* and bake for an additional 30 minutes.
- Remove from the oven and let cool to room temperature. You can eat whilst still warm but it will be runny and quite messy!
I first had this recipe at my future in-laws’ house and I was hooked from the start. This is great example of simple, good quality ingredients coming together to make a comforting and healthy meal. We got a huge bunch of silverbeet in our FoodConnect box this week, so immediately this is what I decided to make. I used PasturePerfectPork bacon, which is one of the only bacon’s I’ve been able to find without nitrates (other than naturally occuring vegetable nitrates) and free-range eggs from D & J’s garden!
I love this dish served with a few steamed potatoes and tomatoes dressed in olive oil, a dash of sugar and chives. I also love eating it for lunch the next day!
Ingredients
- 1 bunch Silverbeet
- 1 Onion, finely chopped
- 2 cloves Garlic, chopped
- 2 Bacon rashers, chopped
- 155 grams Feta cheese, crumbled
- 250 grams Cottage cheese
- 2 tbsps Parsley, chopped
- Salt and pepper
- 4 Eggs
- 6 Sheets filo pastry
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 180*.
- Wash silverbeet, trim stalks and chop leaves roughly. Cook in the microwave in two batches for two minutes each, or steam on the stove until tender.
- Place in a colander to cool. Once cool squeeze out as much excess moisture as possible with your hands.
- Cook onion, garlic and bacon in the microwave for 2 minutes (obviously you can do this in a frypan if you prefer).
- Combine the silverbeet, onion mixture and all remaining ingredients, other than the pastry, in a bowl.
- Grease a pie plate or pastry dish with a spray of olive oil. Line the dish with 3 layers of filo, folded over if necessary. If you can get the filo sheets apart, you can spray in between the layers for extra crispyness.
- Spoon the mixture into the dish and top with the remaining sheets of pastry (spraying in between if you wish). Spray the top of the pastry with a bit more olive oil.
- Bake in the oven for 45 minutes. Serve warm from the oven or at room temperature.
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11.08.11 | 
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