Chicken Pie

Made this chicken pie for lunch today. This is my very first attempt at making a pie. I have never thought I would be able to make a savoury pie, as I can't really cook I always stay away from any bakes that require some form of cooking.

Just last week, my cyberfriend, VB, sent me photos of her lovely chicken pie. She followed the recipe posted by Baking Mum. Instead of making into small individual pies, she made it into a big one. The pie crust was a beautiful golden brown..and it looked very flaky and yummy! I was so inspired with her beautiful pie that I wanted to make one right away :D
I followed the recipe posted by Peony of My Culinary Journal, who has adapted the same recipe from Baking Mum. Like VB, I made mine into big ones...since I do not have a big enough pie pan, I made mine into two medium sized pies...using a 20cm and a 18cm tart pan. I didn't brush on any egg wash on the crust as I do not like the glossy effect after baking.



From the many cookbooks that I have borrowed, I have seen beautiful photos of pies decorated with pretty trimmings and decorative edges. Since I do not have any experience to come up with those intricate trimmings, I simply pressed a fork around the edge of the crust to make it more presentable. With a small piece of dough, I cut out the 'leaves" with a knife since I do not have any nice cookie cutters to do the job. The veins are marked using the back of the knife. I simply place them on top of the crust and cut a few slits on the top before baking. As the dough was rather soft to work with, the leaves were not of the same size and thickness :'(


I was quite surprised that the 'veins' of the leaves were still visible after baking.


As my pie pans do not come with a loose bottom, I lined two stripes of parchment paper at the bottom of the pan. When the pie was done, I tried lifting it out from the pan with the stripes of paper. However, the crust started to crack. In the end, I had to invert the pie onto a plate, and then invert it again onto a serving plate.


My niece came over for to our place today, and so the four of us each had a quarter of the pie. We liked the buttery, crisp crust very much. It is not overly flaky like a puff pastry, but tasted just right for a short-crust pastry. We have varied opinions about the fillings though. Thanks to my lousy cooking skills, my elder boy and my niece felt that the potatoes were too mushy for their liking...but they like the other stuff in the fillings. Whereas my younger boy and I find the soft and mushy potatoes tasty. The kids had fun trading away the stuff in the fillings among one another!



Upon the request by the kids, I had removed all the green peas from the mixed vegetables...all the 3 of them hate peas! So there is not a single green in the pie!


This is the other smaller pie I reserved for my better half. Since there were no extra dough, I didn't manage to decorate the top of this pie. I was glad that he liked it. He ate 3/4 of the pie right after dinner...and he liked the mushy potatoes fillings too :D