Food I make and eat. Chicken & Mushroom pie

Asalam waliykum sisters :D

Inshallah you are all having a wonderful day, I am in a good mood Alhamdulillah have some very big news to announce to the world as of next week. But, you have to wait one more week.

In such a good mood, that yesterday I treated zawji to a new dish, my chicken and mushroom pie with rich creamy sauce. First time i made it for him. Mama used to make this for me lots when i was younger, this and steak and onion pie with a short crust pastry. :D

Inshallah going to share the recipe and lots and lots of photos too!

My cook book and my favourite oven glove :D

 Ingredients:

- One large red/white Onion
- One veg/chicken stock cube like knor or oxo
- 2 chicken breasts cut up into 1inch cubes
- mushrooms, i used baby button mushrooms, 400g
- 1/2 sheets of easy roll puff pastry
- salt, pepper add to your taste,
- 3 stems of coriander fresh, you can use dry if you want
- 3 leaves of basil,
- 2 small cloves of garlic (do not have to add, me and zawji love it)
- 1 litre of water
- olive oil just enough to cook chicken and mushrooms

White sauce:
You can buy shop made, I always make my own.

- 2 spoons of butter
- 3 spoons of flour
- Milk, add to the consistency you desire.
- Pinch of Salt and pepper
- (Can add cheese for a different taste) warning extremely unhealthy :D

On with the show.....

Finely chop up your onion, and cut chicken breast into cubes. Add olive oil to the pan and fry off the onions, once they have cooked slightly add chicken and fry off until the chicken becomes sealed.

Finely chop coriander and basil and add to the chicken, now add some salt and pepper and you can add other spices if you wish. Such as cumin, Marsala etc. experiment :D

Add garlic, which i crushed.

Do not allow chicken to cook for more then 5-6mins before adding water. Add the water, all of it and allow it to boil cover and allow it to cook for around 15-20mins.

In a separate pan add a small amount of oil enough to stop the mushroom from sticking while they cook. Add them cover and let them cook on a medium-high heat until all the water from them has evaporated, leave uncovered towards the end. This can take up to 10-15mins on a high heat.

Inshallah, by now chicken should be well cooked but not dry! I just take on out and cut it open. Once cooked remove the chicken from the Stock and place in a separate pan/plate/bowl and set the chicken and the stock aside, you will need them soon :D

Do not forget the mushrooms they will need a stir to prevent them from sticking.

Now to make the white sauce! You will need to melt our butter, once fully melted add the flour and mix, once the flour and butter have mixed (medium heat) do not let it dry, you need to quickly add milk, small amounts at a time... stir and loosen the butter/flour and add a bit more. You can add as much milk as you like depending how much white sauce you would like. I added around 4 cups of milk. (At this stage you can add cheese for a nice rich flavour.)

I like to use a whisk to cream the mixture and it gets rid of all those lumpy bits left so you get a lovely smooth consistency. Here i have added some dry coriander and basil. I love me some herbs i do!!

Do not leave unattended it will stick to the pan and burn!! needs constant stirring until it starts to boil and bubble to turn the heat up to high for a short time to cook the flour.

Once mushrooms cooked, and sauce is cooked, transfer everything into the same pan the white sauce was in, leave the flame on low. Give it a good old mix... mmmmhhh!

Remember the stock you set aside, well you need it now... take a ladle to transfer the stock into the mixture.

Like so, you do not have to use all the stock add as much as you want. I kept some to make veg soup today. I added around 6 ladles maybe a bit more I lost count :-/

This is the remaining stock, I put it aside allowed it to cool then popped on the lid and put into the fridge. It should be OK to store this for at least 4 days. Suppose you could freeze it too if you did not require it as soon :D

Onto the pastry, I needed to use 2 as my Pyrex dish is huge, belonged to my mama. This size would easily give around 5/6 portions. If you have a smaller dish or pan you may only require one sheet.

If the pastry is fresh role out and use as soon as possible. If frozen allow it to thaw in the fridge before using otherwise will crack and fall apart.

Inshallah by now the stock and sauce should be boiling and bubbly and will become thicker. It depends what consistency you would like, again you can add more stock for a thinner sauce or add less like me and allow it to cook like this for 20-30mins to get really thick sauce. I dislike my pies soggy so i wanted a very thick sauce. Zawji came back from work at this point, tasted it for salt and gave it the thumbs up, with a mashallah (No photo i am afraid) :D

So fill up the Pyrex dish and pastry, allow excess to hang over the edge. If like me you are making a large pie then before adding the top sheet score it lightly and cover the pie. If you are using one sheet you can just fold it over the top of the filling and then can score it or just poke some holes into the pastry with a fork.

So here is what mine looks like. I then cut off all the excess from the top sheet. Then proceeded to tuck it in like when you make a bed :D Then to seal the edges I used fingers and thumbs to twist it at the edges sort of like on a pasty.

As shown above twisted and sealed the edges, at this point you can add egg wash on top for a glazed finish, I didn't as I had no eggs. With the excess pastry I attempted to make some leafs to decorate :D

You could use Cookie cutters if you have them.

Preheat the oven to gas mark 8 or 200-180 degree C depending if you have fan assisted oven or electric. I cooked mine at 180 degrees for 30mins to allow the pastry to cook evenly and to get that lovely golden colour on top.

Here is the finished result! looks sooo scrummy! As you can see the pastry will rise ever so slightly but will not balloon up if you score and poke some holes into it.

I served with boiled carrots and peas. I love the crust and always have the end bits as it has more pastry, but i gave it to zawji instead. Alhamdulillah he loved it. I asked him while eaten if it was ok, he could not speak and nodded as he was shovelling it into his mouth so i take it as he loved it :D

The creamy sauce was not runny and so helped keep the shape of the pastry, if you make it to runny it will make the pastry all soggy and will ooze out onto the plate. Just depends what you like.

We have enough left over for dinner later this evening and you can store it in the fridge for a few days. Just warm up in the oven when needed.

Inshallah that was all clear, if there is anything you need more info one, more explanation on the recipe please feel free to comment or email and i will get back to you Inshallah.

Jazakallah khier for reading, please do make this it really is scrummy, and would be great for Ramadan. One last tip, it is time consuming to make this. So you can infact make this in advance. All you need to do it slightly cook the pastry and the transfer to freezer. When you are ready to use it put directly into oven and allow it to cook. Then you can spend your time doing more acts of worship, although with the right intention cooking can be considered an act of worship especially if you are cooking food for the mosque, or neighbours. You could make one of these and give it to your neighbour or to the mosque and reap the rewards :D

Bsaha! What we say in Morocco instead of bon apetit.

Wa'aliykum Asalam