MJs Chicken Pie

I love this recipe as it's so quick and easy to do, looks great and tastes even better. 

Have it with some fresh veg, for me i'm having carrots, runner beans and baby corn out of the garden and some "chips" cooked in the oven.

The idea of the pie is quite simple and to do this you will need the following ingredients (this will make enough for 3 people)

2 Chicken breasts

1 Red onion

2 Little yellow peppers

1 Garlic clove

1/2 pint of chicken/veg stock

single cream

herbs of your choice (i'm using parsley)

Ready rolled puff pastry

Some veggies

I'm going for -

Carrots

Runner beans

Not so baby corn

Chips

For the chicken pie filling 

I like to steam the chicken breasts, this keeps them nice a juicy. Whilst the chicken is steaming chop up the peppers and onions and add to a frying pan and slowly fry, don't have the heat up too high, cook until softened, after 5 minutes add a crushed and chopped clove of garlic. 

Once the veggies have softened and the chicken is cooked cut up the chicken into small pieces and add to the veggies. Mix together and add some salt and pepper. 

Make up half a pint of chicken stock and add to the chicken mix. Allow to simmer for as long as you can, reducing the liquid. Once reduced add the cream and mix through. 

If the mixture is too runny add some cornflour to thicken, put a teaspoon of cornflour in a cup and add a dash of cold water. Mix the cornflour into the water before adding to the chicken mix. This will make sure you don't have any lumps and a nice chicken filling. 

Finely add some chopped parsley to the chicken mix and the mix is ready! 

For the puff pastry

I use ready rolled puff pastry, its quick its easy and it works well! Cut squares of pastry, 1 for each person, make the squares big enough to fill with the chicken pie filling, so the size will depend on how hungry you are feeling! 

Now score a line inside the square with a knife, do not go all the way through the pastry, this will provide you with a guide when the pastry is cooked to allow you to cut the lid off the pastry and fill with the pie filling! 

Place on a baking tray and cook in the oven, check the packet to see how long this takes, for me it was 200C for 30 minutes. 

The "chips"

I have a child that doesn't like potatoes unless they are in chip form so in order to make "chips" without needing to use the deep fat fryer and to make them a tad healthier I do the following! These are chip shaped roast potatoes ;)

I cut peeled the potatoes and left them in a bowl of cold water for 20 minutes. This helps get some of the starch out and gives me a crispy chip. Once done i rinse the potatoes again and then pat dry. Throw them back into the bowl add some salt and pepper and a drop of oil. Mix everything together and put them on an oven tray and put in the oven at 200C. 

I cook the chips and the pastry together! 

Once the pastry is cooked i leave to cool for a few minutes and the cut the lid off the pastry square and clear out the insides so that i can fill it with the pie mix. 

Add the pie mix, pop the lid on and we are done! 

Serve with the chips and veggies and bingo we have our chicken pie dinner in under an hour!