Ingredients
for the filling
1kg chicken thighs, skin on, on bone
sea salt, like our Cornish Sea Salt
about 7-8 small, cooked salad (waxy) potatoes, quartered
about 7-8 asparagus stems, cooked and cut into 3cm pieces
handful chopped fresh parsley
sea salt flakes, like our Cornish Sea Salt Flakes
freshly ground black pepper
beaten egg to finish
for the pie pastry
½ batch all-butter wholewheat pie pastry
for the sauce
one batch cream pie sauce
A classic, simple pie that is easy to adapt. Though it’s a roast chicken pie you can replace the chicken with cooked firm fish, or a vegetarian alternative like cooked Jerusalem artichokes and carrots, you can get very inventive here and still get a great pie.
You’ll need one of our 20cm (9 inch) Chicago Metallic pie plates, plus our Stainless Steel Flour Dredger (for dusting the pastry as you roll it out) is very helpful. Also a great tray for roasting, like our Chicago Metallic Professional Sheet Pan 24cm x 33cm (1/4: 9 1/2 x 13"), and Siliconised Baking Paper comes in handy too.
Makes one large pie, to fill our BakeryBits Pie Plate 9" (20cm diameter)
Method
Place the chicken thighs on a baking tray covered in non-stick baking paper, and roast for 30 min at 180C fan or until a skewer poked in the bone has the juice running clear. Then leave on the tray to cool, remove/discard the skin and bones, and break or chop the cooked meat into large bite-sized pieces (the chunkier the better). You can add the skin back in if you like, and the bones can be made into stock.
Roll the dough out to about 20cm x 30cm using flour under and on the dough to stop it sticking, then cut the dough almost in half: you want the slightly less dough for the base of the pie than the top.
Place the sheet of dough for the top in the fridge, out of the way. Roll the dough out for the base until it’s about ¼-1/3 cm thick. Lay this inside your pie tin, press it in neatly, and trim off the edge. Brush beaten egg around the rim of the pie crust.
Spread a little cream pie sauce on the base then put half the cooked chicken pieces in, followed by half the potatoes and asparagus, a sprinkling of parsley and salt flakes and finally small spoonfuls of the pie sauce on that. Add the remaining chicken, asparagus, potatoes, salt and parsley and any remaining pie sauce.
Roll out the remaining pastry, lay this over the pie then trim the edge. Crimp the edge of the pie with your finger and thumb, then brush the top of the pie with beaten egg. Re-roll the remaining pastry to decorate the top if you like, and cut or poke slits in the top with a knife for the steam to escape.
Place the pie on a tray to catch any butter as the pie cooks. Bake at 180C fan for 25 minutes then reduce the heat to 160C fan and bake for a further 20 minutes until a dark golden brown. Best served hot.
