Pies (chicken)

Some two or three birthdays ago my wife bought me a class at a cookery school in Brighton where I learnt how to bone-out a chicken. It was a brilliant lesson and has since become a much used skill. I'm no expert, but I can, in the space of about half an hour take a plucked gutted chicken and divide it into two breast portions, two completely boned out leg portions (and that's boned out so that the drumstick remains 'closed' and is thus stuffable), four wing pieces, a pile of minced chicken meat and a carcass ready to roast and make into stock. Enormously enjoyable and I'd recommend it to anyone. Here's where I did it. And here's the results of my labours (I cut the four portions into eight as there were a number of mouths to feed):

So after a recent burst of re-practising these skills I decided to make some chicken pies.

A couple of years ago, after enjoying a few visits to a great pie shop in Birmingham (Urban Pie) I started looking for some individual pie tins the same height as the ones they used. No joy, so I wrote directly to them (Urban Pie) and explained how I wanted to try and re-create their delicious pastries but hadn't had any luck finding the utensils. What do you know, they sent me a set of eight of their used tins. What a nice company. I've since linked to their shop from my website.

Being so deep, the pie tins they sent me haven't often got used. The pastry needs cutting and shaping into the base, the sides and the top as dropping in a sheet means creases-galore up the sides, but after making the pie mixture last week I thought it'd be worth the effort. It was, and here's the recipe:

Chicken, Bacon and Mushroom Pies

1 x onion

2 x garlic

1 x a big pile of mushrooms

1 x a pile of chicken meat, skinned

1 x a knob of butter

1 x a glug of olive oil

1 x a big spoonful of flour

1 x a slosh of milk

1 x a tub of chicken stock (from the carcass of course)

1 x a load of herbs (thyme, parsley, rosemary, bay)

1 x a slosh of cream

I fried off the onion and garlic in the oil and butter, then added the bacon to crisp it up a bit, then the mushrooms and chicken. After it had all had a good fry I stirred in the flour, and then the milk and stock a little at a time to create a lovely creamy sauce. In went the herbs, the cream and lots of black pepper and I let it simmer for about fifteen minutes on a low heat.

I then let it cool right down before generously filling the pie tins which had been lined with a simple un-measured pastry of about three quarters white to one quarter wholemeal flour, salt and butter. The lids went on, a generous egg wash (just yolks but only because I'd used the whites for my unusual quiche/vegetable pie - watch this space) and then in the oven set to about 180ºC for a good 30-35 minutes. They looked great as you can see. They tasted just as good.