Chicken and leek pie

A pie with veggies is a classic English dish, but can sometimes be lacking in flavour. Not this one – the leeks add a wonderful sweetness, and the mustard adds fabulous flavour.

I cheat a little with the pie and simply add a pastry top and don’t actually make a complete pastry casing. This helps reduce the time to make the meal, as well as reducing the amount of pastry per serve. Let’s face it – it’s a nice crispy top that makes a pie great anyway!

The following makes a large pie so I will often cook the whole lot, and then use half for one meal and freeze the other half for a quick dinner during the week.

Ingredients

2 leeks – sliced into thin rounds, using the white part only
2 red onions – diced
100g butter
1 1/2 tablespoons wholegrain mustard
100g (2.3 cup) plain flour
700mL of milk
2 chicken breasts or 4 chicken thighs (thighs have better flavour)
1 sheet of puff pastry
1 egg
1 1/2 tablespoon of sesame seeds

Method

To get started, poach the chicken – to do this, put a saucepan with water onto boil. Add the trimmed chicken, turn the heat down so that it’s just simmering, and cook for approximately 20 minutes for thighs, and 30 minutes for breast. To check, just pull the biggest piece out, cut it through it’s thickest part and if it’s still pink pop it back in for a few minutes.

Now, melt the butter in a large saucepan over moderate-low heat, and add the leeks and onion. The idea is to cook them so that they soften, but you don’t want them to go brown. So keep the heat low, stir them every few minutes, and leave them alone. It should take about 10 to 12 minutes.

After the leeks are cooked, add the mustard and mix, then add the flour. You’re going to make a bechamel-style sauce now, so you want to very gradually add the milk, stirring the whole time. I start off with about 1 tablespoon of milk, and mix it in. I then add another spoonful of milk, and once the mixture starts to look like a liquid rather than a solid, I start adding larger quantities of milk – but still not more than about 1/4 cup at a time. You need to keep stirring, and take your time otherwise it will go lumpy. Once you’ve added all the milk, your sauce is ready.

Lastly, shred or cut up the chicken into bite-sized pieces, mix through the sauce, and then I separate out half to freeze, and put the other half into a casserole dish. This might not look like a massive amount, but we find we only need a very small portion per person because the sauce is very filling.

Finish and Serve

To finish the chicken and leek pie, top with a puff pastry sheet, apply an egg wash for lovely golden colour, and then sprinkle sesame seeds over the top. Cook for 15 to 20 minutes in a hot oven (approximately 200 degrees Celcius), and then serve.

We usually have it with steamed vegetables and a small portion of mashed potato. However, it would also work very well with a side salad.