CONFESSIONS AND A CHICKEN AND LEEK PIE

Okay so the juicy confessions bit first! I. DON'T. MAKE. MY. OWN. PUFF. PASTRY. Well who could be bothered anyway, so many stages, and folding and rolling and flour and butter, and the convenience of having the stuff pre rolled right there in my freezer. I use it for easy desserts like tart tartin or a quick sausage roll for lunch etc etc. So the last time I went to the supermarket I bought some puff pastry. When I came to use it....It wasn't puff at all but short crust! bugger I picked up the wrong package! I like making my own short crust. It's easy and I can control how much butter I use and substitute an egg in it's place which also makes it quite crisp and easy to handle. So My pie today will be using store bough short crust pastry. But If you would like to make your own use the recipe used here in my leek tart.

INGREDIENTS

Filling:

2 chicken breasts in cubes
2 tbs butter
1 tbs olive oil
4 leeks sliced and washed
2 tbs flour
330 ml dry hard apple cider
1/2 C sour cream
1/2 C chicken stock
salt and pepper
3 sheets ready to use short crust pastry

Sweat leeks off for 10 minutes in the butter until lovely and soft in large pan. Remove from pan and add olive oil and brown chicken and season with salt and pepper. Add leeks back to pan and stir in flour and cook for a minute. Add cider and stir in well, add chicken stock and cook for 10 minutes until reduced and thick and then stir in sour cream. Turn oven to 160 C and grease a pie dish and line with pastry. Pour filling and and put lid of pie on and seal well poking a couple of holes in the lid to allow steam to escape. Put in oven and cook for 40 minutes until golden all over and pastry in cooked.



This was really delicious and the pictures do not do it justice!