Nombelina

Whenever I buy a rotisserie chicken or roast my own chicken I always have leftovers. With my latest left over roasted chicken I made these small chicken and mushroom pies.

Ingredients for the filling:

250 gr chestnut mushrooms, sliced

150 gr leftover roasted or rotisserie chicken

30 gr butter + extra for frying

3 Tbs flour

1 ts sage

1 cup chicken stock (240ml)

Salt/pepper

Ingredients for the pastry:

210 gr flour

113 gr cold butter (1 stick)

1 ts salt

1 ts cider vinegar

2½ Tbs cold water

The filling

Shred the chicken in small pieces. Make sure you remove any of the bones. Slice the chestnut mushrooms.

Fry the mushrooms in butter until browned. Add the chicken and the 30 grams of butter. Let the butter melt.

Add the flour and mix this through. Don’t brown the flour. Add the cup of water bit by bit and stir well.

Season with the sage, salt and pepper. Let this slowly simmer for a couple of minutes to cook the flour and thicken the sauce.

You’re looking for a thick sauce that won’t run out of the pies too much. Add a little water if the sauce becomes too thick and reduce if it’s too runny.

Leave to cool completely.

The pastry

Mix the salt and the flour. Cut the butter into small cubes and add to the flour.

Rub the butter and flour between your fingers, until all the butter has been incorporated and the mixture looks like breadcrumbs.

Sprinkle the vinegar and water over the mixture. Stir this through with your fingers and shape into a ball. Don’t knead or handle the dough too much. Shape into a ball, flatten and cover with plastic wrap.

Let the dough chill for 30 minutes to two hours in the fridge.

The pie

I use a small 10 cm ceramic pie dish.

Preheat the oven at 360°F/180°C.

Dust your work surface with flour. Cut the pasty in two pieces and roll out the dough to 1/8 inch thick.

If your dough is too firm, let it come to temperature. Don’t let it soften too much, because that makes it more difficult to handle.

Cover the inside of the dish and cut away the excess.

Fill the pastry with the chicken mixture, leaving ½ inch from the top.

Cover with a pastry lid, cut away the excess and press the bottom and the lid together. Puncture the middle so steam can escape.

Bake the pie for 30-40 minutes in the center of the oven until the bottoms are nicely golden. I suspect that pies in a metal tin will be done quicker.

Look, no soggy bottom!

I’m very pleased with the result of this experiment and will definitely try more fillings. We ate these pies with a green salad.

The pastry is enough for 3 small pies. If you like to make more I would double the recipe.

Tags: Chicken, pastry