Video guide to chicken and leek pot pie
Hi there, Matt Dawson here for a chicken and leek pot pie cook-along.
Panfry the chicken and leek
First of all, for the pie, really simple, olive oil, get it in the pan. While that heats up, about a tablespoon, something like that. Diced chicken breast and while that's cooking along in your pan, don't forget to season your chicken. Get a bit of season in there as well, bit of salt and a bit of pepper.
OK, while that's going along, leeks. Cut them thickly because they are going to reduce in size and the water in the leek will disappear. I've got about 250g of leeks to go with about the same amount of chicken, maybe a little bit more chicken.
Now, that has to cook down, be patient, turn it over, caress it, love it, look after it and just let that. I'm notoriously a fiddler of food but I'm going to leave it, I'm just going to leave that for a little bit, let it all reduce and get nice and gooey. I don't want to overcook the chicken because you're still going to cook it inside the pie but as soon as the leeks get nice and soft, that will do.
Sir in the stock
See what I mean? See that, just starting to get nice and squidgy. I'm looking for the flour, about a tablespoon of flour. And I want you just to sprinkle that around your ingredients and then just turn it over, try and coat every last bit and that's going to slightly cook out. What that is doing is so that when you put the stock on top, it's just going to thicken up nicely and then when you put the cream on top of that as well, you're going to get a nice rich sauce to go in your pie. So that when you crack open the pie - mmm!
OK, so just for a minute or so, let it cook out, don't just put the flour in and put the stock in, you've got to have heat going through the flour, so be a bit patient with it. You can even see on the spoon how it's getting a little bit claggy, perfect.
Stock, 200ml of stock. Little bit of calm there in the pan. Now you're going to think that looks a little bit runny and how am I going to make a pie out of that? Just wait and see, because that is going to thicken up really nice.
OK, I'm just going to leave that for a little bit and hopefully it's going to bubble through and thicken up absolutely perfectly.
Add cream to the sauce
Look, I promised you a slightly thicker sauce and there it is. And that has literally taken two to three minutes to do, I promise you right now. Cream, 150ml of cream. I've just turned the heat down now, I don't want it to aggressive. Lovely. OK, give that a little bit of a stir in there and then the mustard which just gives it a little piquancy, just that little... Go on, don't be scared of it, a heaped tablespoon. I can't waste that, there's no point wasting it, is there?
Now that's just simmering nicely and, all of a sudden, that has turned into a silky, tasty chicken and leek mix that's going to go under some golden pastry. It's all starting to make sense now.
Taste the food as you cook
Very important to taste your food. That's just simmering along, very low heat, you've got to taste it. Just get a bit of leek in there as well. OK, that's good, needs a little bit of salt.
Roll the pastry
I'm just going to show you a quick trick. You can buy ready-to-roll pastry and you roll it into your square, your rectangle, however thick you want to do your pastry. Get your dish, turn the dish over, put it down on the pastry and get a knife. Carve around and then you have the perfect shape to sit on top of your pie mix.
As that's just cooled down nicely - are we loving that? Smells are just absolutely sensational. OK, on to some egg wash. This is just an egg whisked up. Get one of these brushes, just dab the rim of this dish. And then I'm going to lay that right on top, like so. Now I just want to tuck it in. Get in your fork, go with your fingers first, just so it sits in, just on the edge there where it's going to stick. OK, and then just see how I'm bringing it up and it's going to stick - I can already see it sticking to the edge of the dish, like so.
And it looks pretty fancy, as well, to be fair. Just a couple of knife holes, make sure that goes all the way through. Final touch, egg wash it all just for good measure.
Right, that's it, done and dusted. Ready to go in the oven, 20 to 25 minutes, 200 degrees, depending on what your oven's like. Job done.
Serve your chicken and leek pot pie
There you have it, chicken and leek pot pie, get in there. This is going to be so good. Crispy, crunchy. I'm going for a proper portion as well. Look at that, goodness gracious me. Have some of that.
Chicken and leek pot pie. Thanks for coming.