Recipe: Jamie Oliver's Chicken and Sweet Leek Pie

Mmmmmm pie. Who doesn't love a pie?

This monstrosity is from Jamie's Dinners and doesn't look nearly as aesthetically pleasing as his but you know what? It tasted damn fine! I made this for Mr M and he loved it, his only criticism being that there was no bottom. Clearly in his book to be a 'proper' pie you have to have a top AND a bottom. I don't disagree really but we'll let it slide because it's a lot quicker just to whack a pastry top on.

The pie was quite labour-intensive but in a way I find all the chopping and preparing therapeutic. The casserole filling turned out quite watery (as I find most of Jamie's stews/casseroles/curries do) so I left it a little long to cook and did strain a little bit off before filling the pie.

Especially good as leftovers the next day!

Chicken and Sweet Leek Pie

Ingredients

Olive oil
2 knobs butter
1kg boned and skinned chicken thighs/breasts, cut into pieces
2 medium leeks, trimmed, washed and sliced into 1cm pieces
2 carrots, peeled and roughly chopped
3 sticks celery, finely sliced
Small handful of thyme, leaves picked
2 tbsps flour
175ml of white wine
285ml milk
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
255g good pork sausages
1 x 500g pack of all-butter puff pastry
1 egg

Method

Preheat oven to 220C/425F/gas 7.

Take a large casserole pot and add a lug of olive oil and your butter. Add the chicken, leeks, carrots, celery and thyme and cook slowly on the hob for 15 minutes.

Turn the heat right up, add the flour, and keep stirring for a couple of minutes before adding the wine, a wineglass of water and the milk. Season with a little salt and freshly ground black pepper, then cover with a tight-fitting lid and simmer very slowly on the hob for 30-40 minutes until the chicken is tender.  Stir it every so often so it doesn’t catch on the bottom of the pan. Pour the chicken mixture into an appropriately sized pie dish. 

Squeeze the meat out of the sausage skins, roll it into little balls, brown them in a little oil and sprinkle them over the stew.

Roll out your pastry to about 0.5cm/ 1/4 in thick. Egg-wash the rim of the dish and drape over the pastry, using a knife to trim the edge of the dish. Egg-wash the top of the pastry to make it go golden while cooking, then pinch it to crimp it round the edges (there’s no need to do this, but I like to as my mum always does it and it makes it look pretty). I use the back of a knife to lightly criss-cross the top – this allows the pastry to go crisp and flaky

Cook the pie in the centre of the oven for about 30-40 mins, until golden on top.

Serve and enjoy!