Chicken and Mushroom Pie with Buckwheat Pastry
Serves: 4
Time: 65 mins
I like to think of this as a healthier option to a normal pie, lavish me if I was making this purely for flavour would add cream and a knob of butter to the chicken mix so go right ahead if you feel like indulging, but I was very pleasantly impressed with how delicious it turned out without the added calories from cream. I have also never before tried to make a shortcrust pastry out of buckwheat so I was a little dubious if it was even going to work and how it would taste but I am rapt to say it was amazing, buckwheat has a rather strong flavour but with the sauciness of the chicken, it worked really well. YEY! winning the first time which I always love. If you can prep the pastry ahead of time this becomes a really quick pie to make just remember to save 2 tablespoons of the flour once the butter has been rubbed in, you need this to thicken the filling.
Leftovers
This pie makes enough for four so there is plenty of leftovers when just feeding two. We had my very dear french lady friend over for lunch so shared it between 3 and then all had seconds cause it was yummy!
What you'll need
1 large brown onion
3 cloves of garlic
2 medium sized leeks
1 small sprig of rosemary (optional)
1 packet of button mushrooms
2 1/2 cups of chicken stock
2 chicken breasts
200g butter
300g buckwheat flour
100g wholemeal flour
100g baby rocket
1/4 bunch of flat leaf parsley
1 egg
From the Pantry
1 tablespoon olive oil
salt and pepper
Flour
You don't have to use buckwheat you could just sub the whole amount for wholemeal or go with a standard plain white flour. I was a little short on buckwheat which is why I added the wholemeal so you could also have a go at just buckwheat flour.
Prep
Preheat oven to 180
Peel onion and garlic and slice lengthways then saute in a large pot with approx 1 tablespoon of oil till soft.
Add the leeks and roughly chop the rosemary and saute together with the onion mix till soft.
Add the chicken stock and the whole chicken breasts, bring up to the boil then turn down to a high simmer and cover with a lid. Cook for 15 minutes.
While the chicken is cooking…
Slice mushrooms up thin and once the chicken has cooked remove it from the pot and leave to cool. Bring the liquid up to the boil, add the mushrooms to the pot and cook for 5 minutes.
Soften the butter to a spreadable consistency but do not melt it. Mix into the flour till it resembles a crumbly consistency.
Take two tablespoons of the flour mix out and whisk into the pot, this will thicken the sauce.
Rip the chicken up into small bite sized strips and add to the sauce.
Roughly chop the flat leaf parsley and add to the chicken then season well with salt and pepper and spoon the filling into a pie dish.
Prep Ahead
Save yourself some time and make the pastry ahead of time. Pastry can happily rest overnight. Then pull it out of the fridge early so it has time to soften up, this will take the elbow work out of kneading. But remember you need to take some of the dry mix out before you add the water otherwise you might be putting cornflour into your chicken sauce.
Make Pastry
Once you have combined the flour and butter together and have it at a nice crumbly texture and taken out the 2 tablespoons of mix to use with the sauce, you can add 3 tablespoons of cold water to the pastry mix and knead into a dough.
Flatten out slightly then wrap in baking paper and place in the fridge to rest for approx 30 minutes.
Once the pastry has rested remove from the fridge and allow to come back up to room temp. It will be hard and crumbly to start you need to knead it until it becomes soft and easy to roll.
Sprinkle some flour on a clean work surface and roll out so that it is just larger than the size of your pie dish.
Place the pie dish on top of the pastry and trace around the edge with a knife. Pick the pastry up and lay over top, gently press the pastry into the side of the dish allowing for the edge to have a rim along the top surface of your dish.
Use a fork to crimp the edges down.
Separate your egg yolk and whisk it with 1 tablespoon of water, then use a pastry brush to brush over the entire surface of the pastry.
If you want to make the leaves you use a small kitchen knife to cut the leaves out of the of cuts of crust and then gently draw the veins into the top of each leaf with your knife being careful not to cut the whole way through.
Brush the tops of the leaves with the egg wash and place on top of the pie.
Bake in the oven for 35 minutes until golden and crisp.
Plate it Pretty
This is a very rustic country cottage looking dish which looks cool just popped on the table as is. I have used a metal pie dish which I think was only $13 by memory very cute and very practical. Served on a chopping board with a bowl of baby rocket on the side. Because this is a rich and saucy meal I literally just serve the rocket as leaves no dressing but that’s a personal choice.
Lunch tomorrow
When just feeding two there is enough of this pie for lunch leftovers, the pastry doesn’t heat so great in a microwave though so if you can warm it up first in the microwave then transfer to a hot oven for a few minutes to crisp the pastry back up.