Chicken & Sweet Leek Pie with Flaky Pastry

This is another dish from Jamie Oliver’s Jamie’s Dinners in his top ten. It’s a pretty good pie, I’m a pie fan loving any type of pastry dish so this was a winner for me, a good combination including lots of veggies & the filling was not too runny as I find a lot of pie recipes are. One note however, the recipe is to serve 4, once you add the mash & any other sides you will get at least 6 very generous serves out of it & that’s saying something as Michael & I are pretty big eaters (I hate to admit it but its true, can you tell?)

Chicken & Sweet Leek Pie with Flaky Pastry

Olive Oil
2 knobs of butter
1kg boned & skinned chicken legs (cut into pieces) – I used thigh fillets
2 medium leeks, trimmed, washed & sliced into 1cm pieces
2 carrots, peeled & roughly chopped
3 sticks of celery, finely sliced
a small handful of thyme, leaves picked
2 tablespoons flour
1 wineglass of white wine
285ml/1/2 pint milk
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
255g good pork sausages
1 x 500g pack of all butter puff pastry (or a couple of sheets of ready rolled as I used)
1 egg

Preheat the oven to 220c. Take a large casserole pot & add a lug of olive oil & the butter. Add the chicken, leeks, carrots, celery & thyme & 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 & the milk. Season with a little salt & pepper, then cover with a tight fitting lid & simmer very slowly on the hob for about 30-40 minutes until the chicken is tender. Stir it every so often so it doesn’t catch on the bottom of the pan. The sauce should be loose but quite thick. If it’s too liquid, just continue to simmer it with the lid off until it thickens slightly.

Pour the mixture into a pie dish. Squeeze the meat out of the sausage skins, roll it into balls, brown then in a little oil & sprinkle them over the stew. Roll out your pastry to about 0.5cm thick. Egg wash the rim of the dish & drape the pastry over the edges & trim. Egg wash the top, crimp the edges & cut criss crosses into the top to allow the pastry to go crisp & flaky. Cook in the oven for about 30 to 40 minutes, until golden on top. Serve with sweetcorn & mash.

Ricotta & Tomato Tart

For brunch with the girls the other day I made this tasty Tart from Bill Granger’s ‘Bill’s Sydney Food’. To save time I made the pastry the day before & even though when I took it out of the fridge the next day it was rock hard & I thought an absolute disaster, after leaving out for quite some time I was finally able to roll it out, it did break up a bit & needed some squishing back together but in the end it was light & buttery & fantastic, not bad for my first attempt at puff pastry I must say. As you can see mine was a very rustic looking pie indeed. The filling was really yum too & the tart made for a nice morning/afternoon with some salad, bread, prosciutto & cheese to accompany it.

Ricotta & Tomato Tart

Filling
2 ripe tomatoes, finely sliced
sea salt
2 cups ricotta
2 eggs, lightly beaten
¼ cup cream
¼ cup finely grated parmesan
a pinch of ground nutmeg
freshly ground black pepper
1 cup finely shredded rocket
1 egg yolk, lightly beaten, for glazing
2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley

Rough Puff Pastry
200g plain flour
½ teaspoon salt
200g chilled unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
2 tablespoons chilled water

Place flour & salt in a bowl, add butter & rub through with fingertips until the mixture resembles large breadcrumbs. Add enough cold water, cutting in with a knife, to form a ball. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap & refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Roll out dough into a 30 x 15 cm rectangle. Fold in the two short ends to meet in the centre, then fold in again. Roll the pastry into a 30 x 15cm rectangle again, then repeat folding process. Refrigerate as a small rectangle for a further 30 minutes before using.

Preheat oven to 200c. Place tomatoes in a colander, sprinkle with salt & leave to drain. Place pastry dough on a lightly floured surface & roll out to a circle about 35cm in diameter & 3mm thick. Place dough on a lightly floured baking tray.

Place ricotta, eggs, cream, parmesan, nutmeg, salt & pepper in a bowl and mix well. Add rocket & stir to combine. Place this mixture in the centre of the dough, and spread filling over the dough leaving a 5 cm border around the outside. Using your hand, lift & push the border onto the filling. Arrange tomato slices over the top of the filling. Brush pastry with egg yolk & bake in the oven for 35-40 minutes or until golden. Serve sprinkled with chopped parsley & freshly ground black pepper. Serves 8

Steak & Guiness Pie

For dinner tonight another favorite from Jamie Oliver, this time from Happy Days. The thing I love about this dish is it’s so easy & can be prepared ahead of time ready to just pop into the oven later.

Steak & Guiness Pie

680g stewing beef, diced
sea salt & fresjly ground black pepper
2 heaped tablespoons flour
Olive Oil
1 onion, peeled & roughly chopped
4 sticks celery, washed & roughly chopped
2 parsnips, peeled & roughly chopped
1 handful of fresh mixed herbs (ie rosemary, thyme & bay)
565ml/1 pint Guiness
2 x 400g rins tomatoes
1 x 500g pack puff pastry
1 egg, beaten

Season your beef generously with salt & pepper, sprinkle with flour & toss around until coated. Heat 2 or 3 glugs olive oil in a large casserole-type pan & fry your meat until golden brown. Add the onion & fry for another minute, then add the carrot, celery, parsnips & herbs. Fry for a further 4 minutes then pur in your Guiness. Add the tomtoes & rbing to the boil, simmer for around 2 hours or until the meat is really tender, season to taste. At this stage you can move to the fridge until ready to serve, this will also intensify the flavour.

To make the pies, preheat oven to 190c. Put your meat filling into a dishor dishes (if making individual pies). Cut your pastry into circles about 1cm bigger than the top of your dish(s). Brush the rims with beaten egg, place the pastry on top squash the excess down the sides to secure. Lightly score the top of the pstry in a criss cross pattern & brush with the remaining beaten egg. Bake for 45 minutes until golden & Bubbling.

Tarte Tatin

I have seen so many recipes for Tarte Tartins lately that I just knew I had to try one soon. Finally I had my excuse today when Elise came over for lunch. I followed the recipe in Allan Campion & Michele Curtis’ 2006 Seasonal Produce Diary which has not let me down with a recipe yet. The recipe was fairly simple, the only difficulty factor is in tipping it upside down without leaving too much mess & hopefully getting it on the plate straight. With a bit of help from Michael I managed to succeed reasonably well. As you can see in the picture it is not the prettiest of dishes though I swear all the magazine pics look 100% better than mine! The flavour was luscious, very sweet, almost like stewed apples, served with some vanilla ice cream created the perfect balance, really good & you can kid yourself its almost healthy due to the fruit factor. Oh & by the way I used up my entire crop of granny smiths for the season for this recipe & still had to buy 2 apples from the market, yes that’s right, my tree only produced 2 apples for the whole year, hope to have better luck next year. You need a 22cm deep sided cast iron pan for this or alternately you can cook up the apples in a fry pan then transfer to a pie dish before covering with pastry. I used my paella dish which is oven proof, glad to find another use for it.

Tarte Tatin

75g butter
150g caster sugar
4 granny smith apples, cored & cut into 8ths
1 piece of puff pastry, approx 25 x 25cm
egg wash (1 egg yolk with 1 tablespoon milk)

Cream or ice cream to serve

Preheat oven to 190c. Heat pan over medium-high heat, add butter & sugar & cook for 8-10 minutes, stirring constantly. Cook until sugar & butter are a golden caramel colour. Note do not lick the spoon during this process or you will have a burnt tongue like I now do. Next, carefully add the apples taking care not to splash, cook for 2-3 minutes, stirring to coat the apples with caramel. The apples will begin to release their juice & stop the caramel from over cooking.

Set the pan aside & cool a little. Place pastry over the apples & tuck down the sides to completely cover apples & trim off any excess. Brush pastry with egg wash & place in oven. Cook for 20-25 minutes or until pastry is risen, golden brown & cooked.

To serve, place a large plate over pan or pie dish. Then, using oven gloves, tip plate over & remove, leaving apples on top & pastry on the bottom. Serve immediately with cream or ice cream