Just an all around great dish the whole family enjoys. I started with this recipe because it has a lot of technique involved. This site is about teaching the art of cooking as it is about the recipes.
Note: It is good practice to read the entire recipe, while paying particular attention to the "Notes", before you try to make the dish, as there are often subtleties that can be easily overlooked, which sometimes, can make all the difference in the world for the outcome.
Serves 2
Skill Level: Intermediate
Prep time to make filling 15-20 minutes.
Prep to make pie crusts - 45 minutes of bake time for the bottom and 45 minutes of bake time for the top.
Ingredients:
- 3 Boneless chicken thigh filets
- 2 boxes puff pastry
- bag of frozen mixed veg
- bag of frozen pearl onions
- ½ cup heavy cream
- 1 cup milk
- Dry oregano
- Corn starch
- Salt
- Pepper
- Non-stick veg oil spray
- Olive oil/veg oil
- 1 egg
- Chicken stock/bouillon/base
Tools needed:
- paring knife
- brush
- 2 ceramic bowls
- ½ sheet pan or large cookie sheet
Note: you can use whatever canned or frozen veggies you have already.
Note: Feel free to substitute your own ingredients in. If you hate onions and love mushrooms, swap the ingredients. Be adventurous.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Rinse chicken under cold running water. Do not soak.
Slice chicken breast in 1/2 inch wide strips, then cut the strips in ½ crossways.
Salt and pepper the chicken.
Heat a few table spoons of olive oil until it begins to smoke little bit, on high heat, then carefully place chicken in the pot. select a pot wide enough so the chicken has plenty of room.
The idea is, you get a large enough pan hot enough, when you add the meat, it won't cool off that much and it will be able to sear the meat golden.
If the pan is too cool, and or too small, the chicken will loose all its juices and basically boil itself grey.
While the chicken is searing, open one box of puff pastry and use a bowl to cut out the bottoms of the pie crust.
Note: let the pastry fully thaw in the fridge. Do not remove from packaging before the pastry is fully thawed out. This protects the pastry from condensation, which would cause the pasty to stick together.
Note: pastry must be fully thawed, or it will crack and break along the folds.
Remove excess pastry.
Spray the bowls.
If you seared the chicken correctly, it should look like this, nice and golden.
The burner should still be on high heat the during the entire browning process.
Sweat onions with chicken.
Note: To sweat, means to cook until begin to just caramelize and look a little translucent.
Add about a cup of chicken stock or bouillon/base mixed with water.
Turn heat down to medium high.
Place the pastry circles we cut out earlier in the bowls and spray the pastry with oil.
Place tinfoil in over the pastry, press the foil in, but don't press to hard.
Then fill the bowl to the rim with dried beans.
Note: This is called dry baking and what it does, it holds the puff pastry down, so it doesn't puff, creating a pasty bowl.
Note: The beans are not harmed at all and can be re-bagged and used like normal.
You can also use rice, if you don't have beans or enough beans.
Note: As with the beans, this doesn't hurt the rice, and the rice can be put back in the bag after it has cooled.
Now your chicken should be ready for the heavy cream, about ½ cup. If you don't have heavy cream, substitute milk and 1 table spoon butter.
Then add about a cup of milk. Maybe a 1 and ½ cups of milk.
After adding the cream and milk, add the frozen veggies, this should cool the mixture off and stop it from boiling. You will be able to see what you have.
You mixture should roughly look like the photo. So as your adding items to the filling, you can judge the ratio of veg and milk.
The oven should be preheated by now, so place your bowls in to cook the bottom crusts.
This takes about 45-50 minutes.
You can lift the corners of the foil to peak. When what you see is golden brown, they are ready to come out.
Take the egg, with a splash of water to thin it a bit, and whisk it. leave out to come to room temp.
Once the pie filling is simmering again,
add a corn starch and water slurry.
add a corn starch and water slurry.
Note: Add corn starch slurry little by little, let cook for 30 seconds and judge the thickness.
You want the filling to be thick enough to be able to make a pile and it will basically hold its shape, but not so thick it is pasty.
Adjust flavor with salt, fresh cracked pepper, oregano, and whatever else you like: Ex) garlic powder, red pepper flakes, Worcestershire, etc...
Once pie filling is seasoned to your satisfaction, pull off heat and allow to cool. You have time, as your pastry bowls are baking.
45-50 minutes later, pull the bowls out of the oven and carefully remove the foil and beans.
If done correctly, your bowls will look like this.
Put filling in bowls. There should be no left over filling when both bowls are filled.
Open 2nd box of puff pastry and place a sheet over each bowl.
Use a knife and cut the excess pastry off the edge of the bowl and cut vent slits. Use a fork to crimp the circumference.
Note: It is best to cut under the edge of he bowl, instead of right on the edge of the bowl. This way you have a small lip of pastry wrapped around the edge of the bowl, better securing the top crust.
Paint a thin, even coat of the egg wash over the tops of the pies.
Note: Make sure the egg is painted on evenly, or it will make dark streaks on the thicker spots.
Place on sheet pans, far enough apart, so that when the pastry expands, they won't touch.
About 25 minutes in, check the pies, cut off any unruly pastry that you missed earlier.
Note: If your oven has hot spots, it my be necessary to rotate the pies every 20 minutes so they brown evenly.
Approximately 45 minutes later, the pies will look like this.
Allow to cool for 10 minutes before eating.
Enjoy!
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