Chicken, Bacon, Mushroom and Leek Pie

This is hands down my favourite meal of all time. Do I say that about everything? Probably, I do REALLY like food but this, home cooked, is just SO good.

This is as easy as it gets for homemade pie, the filling is all cooked in one pot, no faffing around with separate pots and pans for the filling and the sauce and the pastry is shop bought. The time and effort of making pastry is just not worth it in my opinion, you can get just as good in the shops, if not better, pastry is definitely NOT my department.

Ok enough waffle about my love of Pie, this recipe is enough for 4, the kids had kid size portions and me and Kieran had very greedy portions so for 4 ‘normal’ appetites it would be perfect 🙃

You will need:

• 2 large Chicken Breasts diced

• 6 rashers of Smoked Bacon diced

• 200g Mushrooms quartered

• 250g Leeks sliced

• 2 sheets of Puff Pastry

• 50g Butter

• 50g Plain Flour

• 500ml Chicken Stock

• 100ml Cream

• 1 Egg for Egg Wash

• 1 tsp Tarragon

• 1/2 tsp Thyme

• 1/4 tsp of Rosemary

Fry the Bacon off in a Pan and set to one side, fry the Chicken off in the same pan with a good pinch of salt and pepper.

Add the Mushrooms and Leeks with the Butter and Herbs and cook for a few minutes.

After a few minutes, add the flour and cook out just for a couple of minutes, it will become a paste like consistency around the chicken and veg.

Add the Chicken Stock and Cream and stir through, bring to a simmer. It will start to thicken up into a sauce consistency. Simmer for 5 minutes then add the Bacon.

You can use 2 sheets of pastry for the pie if you want a fully encased pie or just 1 sheet for a pie lid. For a fully encased pie, line the greased pie dish with the pastry (my top tip is make sure the pastry has been out of the fridge for a little while, makes it a lot easier to work with). I don’t do it very well which is absolutely fine and use the offcuts to fill any gaps, it doesn’t need to perfect, just make sure there are no holes and the pastry overlaps the pie dish.

For just a pie lid, transfer the pie filling to an ovenproof dish and then top with the pastry tucking in the edges.

With both options make sure you make two holes in the top of the pie so the steam can escape.

Egg wash the top of the pie, or you can use milk if you don’t have any eggs like we didn’t today!

You can set to one side for later or pop it straight in the oven. For a fully encased pie with pastry on the bottom and top, cook it on 140’ for 40/45 minutes to make sure the bottom cooks and you avoid that ‘soggy bottom’, then turn the oven up to 180’ for 15 minutes to finish it off.

For a pie with just a pastry lid cook on 180’ for 30 minutes.

We always have ours with some for of Potato and some Greens 🤩 so SO good!!

Hope you enjoy.

L x