Chicken, Leek and Bacon Pies

These little pies are great portable fare when you’re on the go  – small enough to carry, substantial enough to be satisfying.

I made the pies with bought butter puff pastry. I think they would be nicer with home made rough puff pastry – I have made beef and red wine pasties with rough puff and they were really tasty.

The filling is Nigel Slater’s recipe from his Dish of the Day series from the episode Simple Treats:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01nq1yv%5B/

It’s pretty easy – you poach the chicken in milk before combining with bacon and leek.  Nigel used chicken thighs on the bone which I also used, giving the pies a lovely flavour.

Ingredients

2 chicken thighs on the bone

6 peppercorns

2 eschallots

1 bay leaf

Milk (enough to cover chicken pieces)

3 rashers of free range, chopped

15g butter

1 leek sliced

1.5 tbsp plain flour

1.5 tsp Dijon mustard

1 packet of Careme butter puff pasyry

1 egg beaten, for glazing

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 190 degrees C.

Place the chicken, peppercorns, eschallots and bay leaf in a saucepan. Cover with the milk. Bring to the boil and simmer for about 25 minutes or until the chicken is cooked.

Put the bacon in a large frying pan with the butter, add the sliced leek and cook until the leek is soft.

When the chicken is cooked, remove from the milk and pull the meat form the bone. Put into the frying pan with the leek and bacon.

Add the flour and cook for about two minutes then add the milk through a sieve to remove peppercorns and bay leaf. Add the Dijon mustard. Stir with a wooden spoon until the sauce thickens.

Roll out the puff pastry on a board. Cut circles from the puff pastry  with a cutter or plate as guide, big enough to line the holes in a regular muffin tin. Grease the holes, and gently ease the pastry circles into the holes. Brush each pastry circle with the egg wash.

Bake in the oven for 10 minutes or until the pastry is lightly brown and puffed. Remove from the oven to cool.

Fill the pastry cases with a generous amount of the filling.  Try not to fill the cases with too much sauce. These pies need to be eaten with fingers so they shouldn’t be too runny!

Cut out circles from the remaining puff pastry, big enough to cover each pie. These pies are rustic, so a perfect lid isn’t important. Brush the lids with more egg wash.

Return the pies to the oven for another 10 minutes or until the pastry lids are lightly brown and puffed.