The Festive Pie

canon rebel

It’s Christmas time, there’s no need to be afraid. It’s the time of year when a festive pie is an absolute must and even though you’ll eat a years worth of poultry in the next few days you can still manage a chicken based pie to warm your winter cockles.

You’ll need some cooked shredded chicken, stuffing balls, a couple of rashers of bacon and the ingredients for a white sauce and of course a sheet of puff pastry. Use your discretion as to how much you want to use but a handful of chicken and stuffing is enough for 2 people. It’s a piece of cake to make so here goes.

Cut your bacon into little strips and fry the hell out of it. It needs to crispy so it adds another texture to the filling. When that’s cooked put it in a bowl to the side and fry your chicken until it starts to colour then add to the bacon. If you have stuffing balls as left-overs then break them up and fry them a little. If not make up a little batch of stuffing and roll it into small bite size balls then fry until golden.

Take 50g of butter (salted of unsalted it’s up to you) and melt in a saucepan, add 50g of plain flour and cook out for about 3-5 minutes on a medium heat then slowly add a pint of milk and whisk furiously so that it doesn’t go lumpy. Add a chopped up chicken stock cube to give it that chickeny flavour then add all of the chicken, bacon and stuffing to the sauce and mix, set aside to keep warm.

Roll out the pastry on a floury surface until it’s about as thick as a pound coin. Put the pie mixture in a baking dish, cover with the pastry and crimp the edges. Score the surface with a sharp knife and brush with either milk or egg wash. Bake for 25-30 minutes at 200c or until the pastry has gone golden brown and serve.

I usually serve mine with roasted squash, carrot and potato and a cranberry gravy. A Christmas treat, enjoy.