The clocks have gone back, the nights are crawling in and it’s only 48 days until Christmas which means it’s the perfect time of year for some comfort food. And what better comfort food is there than a nice warm pie? Ok well obviously there’s cake but I’ve consumed far too much cake in the past week including delicious pumpkin slices, banana cake and ginger loaf so I was in need of something savoury.

I’ve been really rubbish lately with home cooking and usually just whip up a simple dish for dinner so this Monday I cleared the night, found a pie recipe and decided I would cook dinner for the boys. The pie dish I found which was highly recommended belongs to BBC’s Good Food, Jane Hornby, and it is a chicken and mushroom pie.

For this you will need:

·         1 tbsp vegetable oil

·         8 skinless boneless chicken thighs

·         8 rashers smoked streaky bacon, cut into large pieces

·         1 onion, halved and sliced

·         250g pack baby button mushrooms

·         handful thyme sprigs

·         2 tbsp plain flour

·         400ml chicken stock

·         200ml milk

·         500g pack fresh puff pastry, or frozen and defrosted

·         1 egg, beaten

Method:

1.    Heat the oil in a large, non-stick frying pan. Season the chicken to taste, cut to a smaller size and fry for 5-8 mins until golden brown, turning occasionally.

2. Remove the chicken from the pan and place onto a plate. Next tip the bacon into the pan. Fry for 5 mins until crisp.  3.  Add the onion, mushrooms and thyme, then fry on a high heat for another 3 mins until the onions start to colour.

4.  Tip the flour into the pan and cook, stirring, for 1 min.  5. With the pan off the heat, gradually stir in the stock, followed by the milk. 6. Add the chicken back to the pan. Bring to the boil, then simmer for 30 mins. 7. Spoon the filling into a large pie or baking dish (approx 20 x 30cm) with a lip and leave to cool.

8.  Heat oven to 220C/fan 200C/gas 7. On a floured surface, roll the pastry to the thickness of two £1 coins. (I only had one roll of pastry which was 300g and worried this wouldn’t be enough as the roll itself before being rolled out was the thickness of a pound coin but it was actually fine- I hand more than enough)

9. Cut a long strip as wide as the rim of the pie dish and, using a little of the egg, fix to the edge of the pie dish.  10. Brush with egg, then lift the rest of the pastry over the pie, using the rolling pin to help.  11. Gently press the edges with your fingers and trim with a sharp knife.  12. Brush lightly with egg to glaze, then bake for 30 mins or until the pastry is risen and dark golden brown.

As you can see my pastry blew up to be nice and puffy. It was a little overdone but I quite enjoy my pastry that way. I served it with mash and gravy which went down a treat. I put a small portion of pie on my plate and then went back and kept picking at it which is never good but it turned out to be quite rich and delicious. I don’t eat a lot of bacon but I picked it for the boys as I know they love it.

All in all it turned out very well. The filling was lovely but a tiny bit too rich for my taste, I think my next pie will have to have more veg, perhaps chicken and leek. I also still need to make my pumpkin pie. That poor pumpkin has been sitting in my fridge for too long!