Description
If I had to pick my favorite dinner, this one would be very high on my list. Think a creamy from-scratch chicken sauce full of veg and a flaky puff pastry top! We serve this chicken, bacon, and leek pie with mashed potatoes and marrowfat peas for the heartiest of Winter suppers.
Ingredients
- 1 Herbs de Provence roast chicken, meat and skin removed from carcass and shredded. Pan juices reserved.
- 1 tbsp butter
- 2 leeks, sliced finely and washed
- 100g streaky bacon, diced
- 2 cloves garlic, crushed
- 2 carrots, diced
- 2 tbsp all purpose flour
- 1/2 c pan juices
- 2 c chicken stock
- 200ml creme fraiche
- 3 sprigs fresh thyme
- 1 c frozen peas
- sea salt flakes, to season
- freshly ground black pepper, to season
- 1 sheet of puff pastry
- 1 egg, whisked to use as an egg wash for the pastry.
Instructions
- Cook Herbs de Provence roast chook as per recipe instructions. Remove from oven and leave to rest. Strain all of the juices with a fat separator and leave to settle.
- Strip the chicken of all meat (plus a little skin if you like), shred or coarsely chop and set aside.
- In a Dutch oven melt the butter on low heat. Add the sliced leeks and saute until soft (about 10 minutes). Add the bacon and saute for a few minutes until cooked.
- Add the garlic and carrots – cook for 1 minute. Add the flour to the pan and stir through to coat all the ingredients.
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
- Add the reserved chicken drippings along with the chicken stock, thyme, and creme fraiche. Stir through and increase the heat a little and bring to a simmer (lid off) for 15 minutes You’ll notice the sauce will thicken slightly once it starts to simmer.
- Once the sauce has simmered and reduced, add the shredded chicken. Remove from the heat. Add the peas and stir through. Season to taste with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.
- Pop everything into an oven-proof pie dish or leave it in the Dutch oven for a more rustic pie.
- Cover the chicken filling with puff pastry. Brush all over with a beaten egg and make a small slit in the top of the pastry for an air vent. Pop into the oven. Bake for 30 minutes or until the pastry is golden.
Notes
You can easily cook the roast chicken the day before to cut down on time the day of cooking.
When baking a pie, I always recommend popping a large baking tray underneath to catch any overflow.
Because I sometimes like to mix up the tops of my pie (puff pastry one night, mashed potato the next), most of the time, I’ll split this dinner into two days. Keep half in the fridge for the next night, then top with the desired top and bake as usual until bubbly and golden. Don’t you just love when one recipe can serve more than one supper?!
Nutrition
- Serving Size:
- Calories: 923
- Sugar: 8.2 g
- Sodium: 1700.6 mg
- Fat: 60.3 g
- Carbohydrates: 39.7 g
- Protein: 53.6 g
- Cholesterol: 241.1 mg