Chicken and Vegetable Pie Recipe

There's nothing like a winter warmer and well, this is about as warm as it gets. It's also the reason I need someone around to taste the pie because I despise pastry, so I never know if it tastes good because to me, it'll always taste terrible. But, of course I wouldn't miss the chance to make mince pies as well whilst all this is going on. Check out my mince pie recipe here. The pastry for a chicken and vegetable pie is fairly similar but I like this pastry to be a bit harder so it can hold more liquid. I'll do it in steps again, so that you can follow along as you make it. It's fairly simple if you break it up, there's just quite a few steps.

And remember: all dairy products can be swapped out for non-dairy alternatives, all eggs for a spoon of apple sauce per egg and meat can be swapped out for Quorn or a meat-free alternative.

Part 1: Making the Pastry

Ingredients:

• 300g Plain Flour
• 150g Butter
• 1x Egg

How to:

1. Cream together the flour and butter until you get a crumbly mixture
2. Add the egg and mix until a hard-ish dough forms
3. Refrigerate and don't get it out until I say so in this piece

Tip: if you have an electric mixer then your dough should come away from the sides of the bowl and start to form on its own. When you switch the mixer off it should be stuck to the mixing attachment.

Part 2: Making the Filling

Ingredients:

• 4x Boneless Chicken Thighs
• 1x Onion
• 1x Tbsp Minced Garlic
• 1x Tbsp Chopped Ginger
• 1x Tsp Turmeric
• 1x Chopped Red Pepper
• 1x Drained Tin of Sweetcorn
• 500ml Single Cream
• 50g Chopped Mushrooms
• 50g Thick Chopped Carrots
• 2x Stock Cubes
• 2x Tbsp Cornflour

How to:

1. Preheat your oven/air-fryer to 200/C
2. Cook the chicken (on its own, no seasoning) in an oven or an air-fryer (I used an air-fryer) at 200/C for 20 minutes
3. Whilst this is happening, grab a pan and put a small amount of oil in it. Heat the pan and chop the onion and ginger (put in however much you want to add taste, I added only a tablespoon), grab your minced garlic
4. When the pan is hot, then add the onion, ginger and garlic and begin mixing
5. Add 2 shot glasses worth of cold water to the mixture and cover so that they become soft
6. When the onion, ginger and garlic mixture has softened, add the turmeric, the peppers and carrots and continue the softening (this is because mushrooms will become very soft very quickly and you don't want them to liquify whilst the harder things cook). This process should take about ten or so minutes at a medium heat
7. Add the sweetcorn and mushrooms and another shot of cold water. Cover the mixture and allow it to cook at a medium heat. The mushrooms should be brown when they're done - this should take another five to ten minutes
8. Grab the chicken from wherever you've stored it and pull it apart, chopping it to be about as big as your mushrooms and add it to the mixture
9. When this is done, reduce the heat slightly and add the cream, stock cubes and cornflour. Mix the whole thing a little and cover it again, bringing the heat back up to medium
10. Once the stock cubes and cornflour have melted, plus the cream is hot, remove the cover from the mixture and allow it to cook uncovered for about five or ten minutes.

Tip: You should see the cream bubbling up slightly, this is your sign to mix everything together properly as well, making sure the onions from the beginning are sticking to the bottom of the pan

1. After this, reduce the heat slightly so that the cream is no longer bubbling
2. When the cream has thickened and the mixture has gone a sort of light brown, then you can bring it off the heat and put it to one side

Go and grab your pastry from the fridge. It should be a little hardened by now :)

Part 3: Back to the Pastry

Tip: you'll need to grab your pie dish for this part!

How To:

1. Preheat your oven to about 180/C
2. Roll out your pastry to about a thumb bigger than your pastry dish (remember, it's going to shrink a little)
1. Shape it to fit your pie dish.

Tip: I do this thing where I roll the pastry out on to a chopping board and then I put the pie dish face down on top of it and flip the thing over. It makes everything super easy and the pastry doesn't break

2. Cover your pastry in your pie dish in greaseproof paper
3. Blind bake for about 10 minutes. Your pastry should look like it has lost a bit of its colour when you bring it out. This will harden it so that you can put your liquid mixture in there
4. When you bring it out of the oven, do not turn the oven off, put your filling into the pie dish and fill it to the fill line (don't worry, after the blind bake, it shouldn't shrink anymore) and place it back in the oven for about 20-25 minutes
5. You should see the top of your pie start to harden a bit and turn a lovely brown on some parts and yellowish on others, this is a sign that your pie is cooking properly
6. Once done, grab the pie from oven and enjoy!

Conclusion

I told you, there were a lot of steps but it's definitely worth it to make. I don't tend to add pastry tops to things so people can see what they're eating, but you can definitely choose to.

Also remember, when you make a cream-based pie, it should harden in the oven a bit, which is how you know you've made it right. It's kind of like making sweet potato pie in which you only know it's done as it starts to brown and harden.

If you're unsure, grab a skewer. Stick it in the pie and if everything is still gooey, it isn't done. If things aren't coming on to the skewer as easily then it's on its way!