I absolutely love Chicken & Vegetable Pie with a double crust. Even though the filling is primarily chicken, it contains a substantial amount of vegetables. I prefer to make the pie entirely from scratch. However, you can also make it using store-bought shortcrust pastry. You can also use pre-cooked chicken. Alternatively, you can create the pie filling and just add a pastry topping. In this case, you could opt for puff pastry instead of shortcrust pastry if you prefer.
Planning the pie
As mentioned, I prefer making such pies from scratch. But that requires a bit of planning. That’s because several different stages must all come together to bring the pie to fruition. However, not everything needs to be done on the day the pie is baked. For example, you can make the pastry in advance and refrigerate it until needed. The same is true for the chicken. So let me explain my process. I will also detail other options.
- Make the pastry and chill it in the fridge — this step is possible beforehand.
2. Cook the chicken, creating stock too, and cool it — this step can also be performed ahead of time.
3. Prepare the sauce, including the vegetables and allow it to cool.
4. Roll out the pastry and chill it again.
5. Shred or chop the cooled chicken and combine it with the filling sauce.
6. Assemble the pie and bake it.
After baking allow the pie to cool for about 4 hours. That will allow the filling to set enough for clean slicing. But of course it is perfectly fine to serve it sooner.
Ingredients
Let me explain a little about the ingredients for pie.
The pastry consists of flour, salt, butter, crème fraîche, and egg. You can replace crème fraîche with sour cream or natural yogurt.
For cooking the chicken I prefer to use skinless, boneless, chicken thighs since I prefer the flavour. They are also convenient. However, you can use any type of chicken , provided you remove the skin before filling the pie. Simmer the chicken in stock with a bay leaf, dried thyme and vegetables—celery, leek, carrot, and onion, which also add flavour. You can discard the vegetables after cooking the chicken. But I save them and use them in making soup another time. The cooking process yields extra stock, more than needed for the pie, but the excess can be frozen for future use.
The ingredients for the sauce and vegetable filling include chicken stock, white wine (or more chicken stock), milk, plain flour, onion, carrots, celery, peas, mushrooms, butter, olive oil, salt, pepper, and dried thyme.
As is evident, it is best to plan the pie to manage all the ingredients and steps. However, i following this process works so well to produce a great pie.
My Pie
The pie was baked to perfection. The total baking time was 55 minutes. I reduced the oven temperature part-way through. The pastry, on the top and bottom, was perfectly cooked.The filling reached a piping hot temperature. When cut—earlier than initially intended due to eagerness to share it with my niece for her dinner—it was still very hot. My filling was rich and unctuous. It did ooze a little, as I cut it earlier than intended, which was completely acceptable. The taste was absolutely fantastic. Feedback from my niece and her husband was that the pie ‘was delicious, we both had seconds and it is now all gone’.
Another great pie recipe is Deep Filled Minced Beef Pie.
Chicken & Vegetable Pie – Double Crust
Course: Pies, TartsDifficulty: Medium6
servings1
hour1
hour20
minutesPerfect Chicken & Vegetable Pie in a rich double crust
Ingredients
- Pastry
120ml(1/2 cup) crème fraîche
1 medium egg(large in USA)
350g(2 1/3 cups, based on scooping packed flour into a 250ml cup)plain flour
170g(12 tbsp) cold unsalted butter, cubed
6g(1 tsp) salt
1 beaten egg, for brushing over the pastry.
- Cooked Chicken
800g(28 oz) skinless boneless chicken thighs – see note below
1250ml(5 cups) chicken stock (water is ok too)
150g(1 small) onion chopped
80g(1 stick) celery, chopped
60g(1 small) carrot, chopped
1 bay leaf
1g(1 tsp) dried thyme
- Vegetable Filling Sauce
200g(7 oz) finely chopped onion
200g(7 oz) roughly chopped mushrooms
100g(3 1/2 oz) frozen peas
100g(3 1/2 oz) diced carrot
84g(3 oz) chopped celery
53g(6 tbsp) plain flour
56g(4 tbsp) unsalted butter
15ml(1 tbsp) olive oil
360ml(1 1/2 cups) chicken broth(from cooking the chicken)
180ml(3/4 cup) white wine (or use extra chicken stock instead)
120ml(1/2 cup) milk
3g(1/2 tsp) salt
1g(1/2 tsp) black pepper
.5g(1/2 tsp) dried thyme
Directions
- Place the flour and salt into the bowl of food processor and pulse to combine.
- Add the butter and pulse a few times to break the butter into the flour leaving a few little lumps of butter.
- Beat the egg into the crème fraîche until nice and smooth.
- Pour most of that into the food processor bowl and pulse until just about combined
- Add the remaining crème fraîche/egg mixture and process until the mixture clumps into a dough.
- Tip the mixture out onto the work surface and squeeze into a soft, malleable, dough.
- Divide the dough into 2 equal portions and form both into discs.
- Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and chill for at least an hour.
- Put all the ingredient for cooking the chicken into a large saucepan.
- Place the saucepan onto the heat and bring it to a boil, then reduce the heat until the chicken thighs are fully cooked. That is a temperature of 78C to 80C(170F to 175F).
- Strain the stock into a bowl and set aside.
- Transfer the chicken to a bowl to cool. Once cooled shred the chicken and place it in the fridge until needed.
- Discard the vegetables(or save to use for something else).
- Heat the butter into a large pan until melted.
- Heat the oil in another, smaller, pan.
- Place the mushrooms into the small pan and fry them until they have reduced and the liquid released has evaporated, then turn off the heat.
- At the same time as frying the mushrooms add the onion, carrot, celery, salt, pepper and thyme to the large pan and gently cook them until the vegetables have softened(about 8 minutes)
- Stir the flour into the softened vegetable until everything is coated and thickened.
- Add the wine and stir vigorously as it cooks off the alcohol, about a minute.
- Pour in 360ml of the chicken stock saved from cooking the chicken.
- Pour in the milk as well, and stir. Continue to cook, adding the cooked mushrooms too, until everything has thickened into a rich sauce.
- Turn off the heat and stir in the frozen peas. Set the sauce aside to cookl
- Roll out one portion of dough on a well floured surface, to a diameter of about 30cm(12 inches).
- Carefully place the dough into a 23cm(9 inch) pie dish, leaving an overlap around the edge.
- Roll out the second portion of dough to the same dimensions and chill both portions in the fridge for about 30 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 230C/210C Fan/450F.
- Stir the chicken into the cooled vegetable filling sauce.
- Spoon the filling into the pastry lined pie dish, doming it in the middle.
- Place the second disc of pastry over the filling and carefully tuck the edge under the overlapping edge of the bottom pastry.
- Crimp the edge of the pastry all around to make a good seal.
- Make two slit, forming a cross, in the centre of the pasty.
- Brush all over the top of the pastry with beaten egg.
- Bake the pie for 20 minutes and then reduce the temperature to 190C/170C Fan/375F.
- Bake for a further 35 to 40 minutes, until the filling is piping hot and the crust has browned well.
- Remove the pie from the oven and leave to cool for about 4 hours, so that the sauce thickens as it cools. Though it is perfectly acceptable to serve the pie just as soon as you wish.
Notes
- Instead of skinless, boneless, chicken thighs you can use any other chicken, but after cooking remove and skin and bones.
- Use the discarded vegetables when making soup.
- Freeze excess stock from cooking the chicken, to use another time.