I'm returning to University in a few days so it was lovely to spend a day, for old times sake, in the kitchen with my mom. This is quite a time consuming dish, but it's still very simple, and when you taste it, the time spend making it will be forgotten.
The filling freezes very well. My mom often makes it before a holiday, especially around Christmas, because it's the ideal dish to take out of the freezer and reheat for the family.
Chicken pie
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| Omnomnomnom... |
Ingredients
- 2 medium sized chickens with 3 extra chicken breasts
- 3 large onions, chopped roughly
- 1 heaped teaspoon cloves
- 2 heaped teaspoons dry chicken stock
- 3/4 cup sago
- 1 packet of mushroom soup powder
- 1 roll (400g) puff pastry
- Milk
- Salt and pepper
Method
Soak the sago in water for two hours (this can be done while the chicken is cooking).Remove all excess fat and skin from all the chicken and cut the whole chickens into portions. Place the onions in a large pot. Pack the chicken portions (and the extra breasts) on the onions and add the cloves and chicken stock to the pot. Add boiling water to the pot until the chicken is almost covered. Bring to a boil, turn down the heat and let simmer until chicken is cooked and falling of the bones.
Remove from heat and debone the chicken. While deboning the chicken, cut the chicken into bite size pieces.
Drain the liquid from the onion mixture that is left in the pot. Also remove the onion mixture and set aside. Remove the excess fat from the top of the liquid and pour most of this liquid back into the pot, leaving about a cup of liquid to be used later. Dispose of the cloves that are in the onion mixture and add the onion mixture to the deboned chicken.
Dissolve the packet of mushroom soup powder in the cup of liquid that was put aside. Add the sago and the mushroom soup powder mix to the liquid in the pot. Reheat the contents of the pot over a low heat until the mixture begins to thicken. Add the chicken and onions to the mixture. Add salt and pepper to the chicken mixture, if necessary. Simmer for about 15 minutes. Your filling is done! You can freeze the filling as it is now (after it has cooled of course).
Pour the filling into a greased, oven proof dish. Let the filling cool before rolling out the puff pastry and covering the filling with the puff pastry. Brush the puff pastry with milk. Prick the pasty with a fork (about 4 places, distributed over the pie).
Bake in a preheated oven at 180degrees celsius for a hour, or until the puff pastry is a golden brown.
Serves 8-10 people.
Happy eating!!
