Sunday Lunch Part 1

We managed about an hour in the garden earlier - hoeing, nothing interesting - before the rain came again.  I am sick to the back teeth of this weather!

The only possible course of action was to retreat inside and make Sunday lunch.

And what a splendid Sunday lunch it will - hopefully - be.  The Book has a "savoury baking" section and we tried this recipe last weekend.  It was so nice that Alastair requested it again. 

I started by frying onions, pancetta, leeks and mushrooms in olive oil...

..then added a bit more olive oil and fried a diced chicken breast with parsley and thyme from the garden.  A tablespoon of flour was sprinkled in and mixed in well, and it was ready for the liquid ingredients.  At this point I parted company with the recipe, which said to add 300ml of cream and 1tbsp of mustard and bring to the boil.  Although I am well known for my love of all things fattening, and subsequent constant battle with my eve-increasing waist-line, this was too much even for me.  Instead I added 150ml of chicken stock, 150ml of cooking wine, a couple of tablespoons of half-fat creme fraiche and the mustard and brought that to the boil.

Because the pie filling was a lot thinner than it would have been with 100% cream I let it simmer for about half an hour until it had reduced.

While the pie filling was simmering I rolled out my pastry.  I have to say, I have blogged about making my own pastry, but I don't make my own puff pastry.  I have done, and it's very time consuming and doesn't taste as good as the ready-made stuff (well, mine didn't!).  So it's Jus-Roll for me!

I rolled out two-thirds of the pastry and lined my pie-dish...

...and filled it with my reduced pie-filling.  It was actually still quite liquid so I lifted the solid bits out with a slotted spoon and served the remaining liquid as a sauce (delicious!).

Then I rolled the remaining pastry out for the lid.  I brushed beaten egg around the top of the dish to help the pastry lid stick to the sides (top tip), made two slits in the top to let the steam esacpe while cooking, then brushed the top with the beaten egg and it was ready to go in the oven. 

I didn't use any of the left-over pastry to make shapes for the top beacause I was developing a plan...