Chicken and leek pie for two
A creamy filling under a lid of golden puff pastry
Halves into one small pie in a smaller dish. Freeze the second pie unbaked or baked, well wrapped, for up to three months, and defrost it in the fridge overnight.
Leek is the vegetable this diet distrusts most, and not without reason. Raw or under-cooked, it is pure stubborn string. Sliced very finely and given fifteen slow minutes in butter, it turns into something closer to a sauce than a vegetable, disappearing entirely into the filling, and that is the whole trick here. Chicken thigh, cooked gently in the same pan, stays tender through a short simmer, and a shop-bought sheet of puff pastry means the only real work is the filling underneath it. Once that lid is golden and risen, nobody at the table would guess that anything had been left out of the pan below it.
Ingredients
Contains: Gluten, Milk, Egg, Celery
- 20 gunsalted butter
- 2leeks, white part only, about 200 g, very finely sliced
- 350 gchicken thigh fillets, skin removed, cut into 2 cm pieces
- 25 gplain flour
- 200 mlclear chicken stock, strained, or a good stock cube
- 150 mldouble cream
- 1ready-rolled white puff pastry sheet, enough to cover two small pie dishes
- 1egg, beaten, for the egg wash
- salt
Method
Melt the butter in a wide pan over a low heat. Add the sliced leek, cover and cook gently for 12 to 15 minutes, stirring now and then, until it has completely melted down with no bite or strand left in it.
Turn the heat up to medium, add the chicken and cook for 5 to 6 minutes, stirring, until it is no longer pink on the outside.
Sprinkle over the flour and stir for a minute to coat everything, then pour in the stock a little at a time, stirring to a smooth sauce. Bring to a simmer, cover and cook for 15 minutes, until the chicken is completely tender.
Stir in the cream and simmer uncovered for 5 minutes, until the sauce thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon. Season with salt, divide between two small pie dishes and leave to cool for a few minutes.
Heat the oven to 200°C fan (220°C). Cut the pastry to fit the tops of the dishes with a little overhang, drape it over the filling, press the edges to seal against the rim and trim off any excess.
A cold filling holds its shape better under the pastry. If you have time, let it cool for longer before you top the dishes.
Brush the pastry all over with the beaten egg and cut a small slit in the top of each to let steam out. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until well risen and deep golden.
Leave to stand for a few minutes before eating. The filling underneath is very hot.
Watch-points
- Slice the white part of the leek very finely and cook it low and slow until it has completely melted down. Leek left in strands is stringy and hard to manage.
- The stock goes into the sauce, so it needs to be clear and strained, with nothing solid left in it.
- Buy a plain white puff pastry with no seeds scattered on top.
Some hospitals allow well-cooked leek; the leaflet this book follows does not. Leave it out if you have been told to.
Make it more nourishing
- Stir an extra 50 ml of double cream into the sauce before it goes into the dishes.
- Add 1 tablespoon of skimmed milk powder to the sauce while it simmers. You will not taste it.
- Use 400 g of chicken thigh instead of 350 for a fuller filling with no extra sauce.
Swaps
- Instead of puff pastry, use shortcrust pastry
- gives a shorter, more solid lid if you prefer it to flaky
- Instead of chicken thigh, use chicken breast
- leaner, but needs a shorter simmer of around 10 minutes so it does not turn dry