Chicken Pot Pie

Filling

• chicken thighs800 g
• chicken stock700 ml
• butter60 g
• plain flour50 g
• onions1
• carrots2
• celery sticks2
• leeks1
• frozen peas150 g
• double cream100 ml
• thyme leaves1 tsp
• flat-leaf parsley3 tbsp
• lemon juice1 tsp
• salt
• black pepper

Pastry

• puff pastry375 g
• eggs1

Filling

1. 01

   Bring the stock to a bare simmer in a saucepan, slide in the boneless, skinless chicken thighs and poach them for 12 to 15 minutes, until firm and no longer pink in the middle. Lift them out to cool and keep the stock hot. Poaching leaves you with meat in whole pieces and a stock that now tastes of chicken, which is where the sauce gets its flavour.

2. 02

   Finely chop the onion, cut the carrots and celery into 1 cm dice and slice the leek. Melt the butter in a wide pan and cook the onion, carrots, celery and leek gently with a pinch of salt for about 10 minutes, until they are soft but have taken no colour. A velouté should stay ivory, and browned vegetables turn it grey.

3. 03

   Stir in the flour and cook for 2 minutes, then add the hot stock a ladleful at a time, whisking each one in before the next. Simmer for 8 to 10 minutes, until a spatula drawn across the base of the pan leaves a channel that closes only slowly.

4. 04

   Chop the parsley. Off the heat, stir in the cream, the peas, the thyme, the chopped parsley and the lemon juice, and season well with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Cut the cooled chicken into 3 cm pieces and fold it through.

5. 05

   Spread the filling in a shallow dish and leave it until it is cold, about 30 minutes, or cover it and refrigerate. Pastry laid over a warm filling starts melting before it bakes.

Pastry

6. 06

   Heat the oven to 200°C with a baking tray on the middle shelf. Spoon the cold filling into a 1.5 litre pie dish, standing a pie funnel or an upturned eggcup in the centre to hold the lid clear of the sauce.

7. 07

   Beat the egg. Cut a 2 cm strip off one long side of the chilled all-butter pastry sheet. Wet the rim of the dish, press the strip onto it all the way round to make a collar and brush the collar with beaten egg. Pastry grips pastry far better than it grips china, and this collar is what keeps the lid anchored while it rises.

8. 08

   Lay the rest of the sheet over the dish, press it down onto the collar and trim it flush. Knock up the edge by tapping it horizontally with the back of a knife, which separates the layers so they open out in leaves.

9. 09

   Chill the assembled pie for 15 minutes, then brush the top with egg, keeping it off the cut edge, and make a small cross over the funnel.

10. 10

    Slide the dish straight onto the heated tray and give it 25 to 30 minutes. It is ready when the lid has risen into a deep gold dome and sauce is working its way up around the funnel. Leave it 5 minutes to settle.