Chicken Pie with DIY Pastry

For the past month, my eldest daughter pestered for Chicken Pie almost weekly. Before that, she hardly even bothered to eat one. Since when did she picked up liking this dish, I'm not sure but Chicken Pies have always been my favourite savoury pastry since young. I love to open up the top crust and add ketchup into it. Yummy!

Although I've made many pies before, I usually do it with a store bought pastry. Until I found an easy recipe from Baking Mum, I decided to try out her pastry recipe for my chicken pie filling. Her pastry recipe is SUPER EASY! But remember that this pastry is not the puff pastry but more like a cross between the short crust and puff pastry. Puff pastry takes a little more time to do the folding part so I won't bother, for the time being.


Here is the recipe for Baking Mum's pastry:

200 gm butter
250 gm plain flour
110 gm plain yoghurt
1 tsp sugar
1 egg yolk
A pinch of salt

Put all the ingredients into the mixing bowl except yoghurt, and mix to a crumble. Add in yoghurt and mix to a dough. Dough will be very soft so need to keep it refrigerated for at least 30 mins.


There! Easy, right? I did the pastry one day before using it as I wanted to marinate the Chicken for the pie first. The chicken filling is what I have been using for many pies that I've made as well as the chicken stews that I make for my children.

Here is the Chicken Stew recipe that I have been using, for my pie.

900g Chicken Thigh (boned in)
2 medium Carrots (diced)
2 medium Potato (diced)
1/3 bulb Garlic (bruised)
1 large Onion (diced)
500mls of water


Marinade
Teriyaki Marinade 2 tbsp
Chicken Powder (Knorr) 1 tsp
Maggi Seasoning 1 tbsp
Lea & Perrins 2 tbsp
Light Soya 2 tsp
Dark Soya 1/2 tsp
Sugar 2 tsp
Sesame Oil 1 tsp
Cornflour 1 tsp
Italian Herbs 1/2 tsp
Chinese Wine 1/2 tsp
Salt & Pepper to taste


1/2 onion (diced)
250g Button mushrooms (sliced)
200g Green Peas (blanched in hot water, set aside)
Hard Boiled Eggs (slice or quartered)


To thicken gravy:
Cornflour 2 tsp + Water 50mls

Egg wash
1 egg + add 5mls water, beat slightly with fork.



Method
Marinade the chicken thighs with Marinade above, overnight.

In a wok or saucepan, saute the onions (diced from whole) in oil. Add the bruised garlic. Brown the chicken thighs till the juices are sealed and a little browned on the skin. Add about 2 cups of water and braise it till the chicken is soft and tender. Add carrots, followed by potatoes 5 minutes later. (if you are using Russet Potatoes, it will take a short time to cook them. Yellow potatoes take a longer time). Cook over slow fire and continue to braise till the potatoes and carrots are soft and tender. By this time the gravy should be slightly thicker too.

This gravy is suitable as stew. However if you want to make it a little thicker, add the cornflour and water mixture while it is still simmering, giving it a very quick stir. This will make the gravy thicker for use in the pie.

In the meantime, saute the 1/2 diced onion in hot oil in another saucepan. Fry the mushroom till they are cooked, then briefly stir in the green peas that has been blanched briefly with hot water.

To assemble the pie
Roll out the pie pastry dough on a marble top. Line the base of the pie pan with extras hanging out of the rims of the pan.

Cut out the excess, leaving just about 5mm extra at the rims.

Filling the pie.
The chicken is now tender to be deboned easily. Fill the pie with chicken, potatoes, eggs, mushrooms, topped with gravy. Roll out another pastry dough out bigger than the diameter of the pie pan.

Cut a small hole or two at the top of the pastry for steam to be released while baking.

Lay the top pastry on the top, overlapping the extra 5cm layer from the base. Press to seal both layers. You can make whatever pattern you like at the top part or just use the fork to prick the pie pastry. I made two different sizes. A large 8 inch pie using a Bear Cookie Cutter to lay the top crust and mini aluminium pie cups and cut out the top to lay over the pie filling.

Brush on the egg wash and bake in pre heated oven (180 deg C) about 40 minutes or till the crust is golden brown in colour.