Chicken pie

I admit I'm not that good at making pies or tarts, and I tend to avoid them, especially when flaky pastry is required. I can't imagine that amount of butter in me!

But I had a craving for chicken pie. A craving for not just any chicken pie, but Violet Oon's chicken pie. I used to take a bus to Holland V to get them. That was about 15 years ago. I'm not sure if Violet Oon still sells chicken pies, but I remember hers to be the only ones I like. The pie crust was not too flaky or dry and the chicken very tender. Best of all, a little gravy oozes out when you eat the pie. Oh, one more important thing - they do not contain peas!! I do not dislike peas on their own, but I just cannot stand having peas, carrots and corns (you know, the frozen packs) in my pie.

I procrastinated for a few weeks because I am lazy. There's the pie crust to make and chill, chicken to cook, pie to assemble before finally baking it. It's a lot to do!

But then, hey, I just bought a new baking board. It can be used to roll dough, roll fondant, protect my table top and so much more! I can't wait to use it. Just at about the same time, I came across Donna Hay's Modern Classics Book 1. I'm her fan! I love her books, the pictures. I can stare at them for hours. They excite me like no other books can at the moment. No excuses now.

So, I started my pie attempt one afternoon. By the time my pie was done, the skies had turned gray and  begun to rain (hence the last 2 pictures looking quite awful with camera flash)

The original recipe used puff pastry to cover the top of the pie. But I decided to use the same crust for both the top and bottom. I am not good at making pastries. It took some struggling to get the pie crust to cover the top of the pie nicely without breaking. Fortunately, I was only using small pie moulds. My eggwash was also not brushed nicely, which affected the final look. I definitely need more practice on this.

The chicken was a little too salty, most likely due to the tweaks I made, since I did not have white wine on hand. I added some chinese cooking wine and soy sauce and left the chicken to simmer in the stock.  The taste is of course different, but that was all I had! But I certainly like having the gravy in my pie. It only lasted a while when it was freshly baked though. When I warmed up another one the next day, the gravy had already been absorbed into the bottom crust and the top crust had dried a little. Perhaps I should have used flaky pastry like what the recipe recommended. Next time. I'll do this again with spinach and salmon.

The recipe for the shortcrust pastry is here and the recipe for the chicken pie is here.