Ruby Tandoh’s favorite chicken pie
Ruby Tandoh’s favorite chicken pie is one of the recipes from Flavour , her superb second cookbook that includes a number of British dishes. A pie for six or six individual pies.
- a sheet of frozen puff pastry, thawed
- a beaten egg
- 2 Tablespoons unsalted butter
- 2 big sweet onions, like Vidalias, sliced into thin crescents
- about 6 oz chopped Irish or English unsmoked bacon ( see the Notes)
- 1 cup pale ale
- 1 cup chicken stock
- 1 lb skinned chicken thighs and drumsticks (or a lb of either)
- 3 Tablespoons flour (preferably Wondra)
- 6 oz heavy cream
- torn leaves from 2 heads of chicory
- salt and pepper
- Melt the butter in a heavy pot just big enough to hold the chicken over medium low heat until soft, then increase the heat to medium high, add the bacon and cook it for 2-3 more minutes.
- Add the ale, stock and chicken, bring the mix to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for about ½ hour.
- Take the chicken from its broth, turn off the heat, let the chicken cool then tear the meat from the bone.
- Return the broth to medium heat, whisk the flour into the pot, and cook until the sauce thickens: It will not take long.
- Turn off the heat and stir the cream into the sauce.
Preheat the oven to 400˚.
- Add the chicken and chicory to the sauce, season the filling and let it cool.
- Spoon the filling into the pie pan and top it with the pastry, crimping the edges to seal the pie. If you have a pie bird use it: Otherwise cut some slits in the pastry, then paint it with the egg wash.
- Bake the pie until the crust is puffy and golden, usually in about 30 minutes.
Notes:
-Tandoh makes her own puff pastry but we are not that ambitious.
-The chicory is an imaginatively good gambit.