Art of getting creative with cooking! When you have some food left from the previous day, be it beef stew, vegetables or pasta, I enjoy taking it, turning it around and making a new dish out of it. And today's dish is not complicated. Actually, if you don't have leftovers, you can still make this pastry dish from scratch. This week I made roast chicken but we couldn't finish it. So there was plenty of good cooked soft and juicy chicken pieces. There were bits and pieces of vegetable in the fridge drawer and I took these as well in order to come together as a totally fresh recipe. With all the chicken I have and some mushrooms in the fridge, all I could think about was to turn it into a nice British Chicken and Mushroom Pie which my mother-in-law makes fantastically. However I realized that I didn't have all of the ingredients for her pastry recipe. Then I had to go along and make my own pastry. So here you are: An amazing yummy chicken and vegetables pie. You can make these pies quite big like I did in the picture (like one pie per person), or you can make smaller pies with less amount of mixture inside. It is up to your taste. Fish out all the bits and pieces of vegetables, cheese and meat from your fridge, quickly make the dough and put it in the oven. You will love it; your family will love it; your friends will love it. Let's cut to the chase and write the full recipe, which can be adopted easily.
Ingredients:
Pieces of roast chicken or stewed chicken breast (a big cup will be enough for four people)
Roasted mixed vegetables (in my roasted vegetables dish I had mushrooms, carrots, Brussel sprouts, red onion. It could be anything. You can even stir fry all of these quickly)
1 onion
150 gr of mushroom
1 cup of feta cheese or crumbly cheese
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
For the pastry:
300 gr flour
5 table spoons of milk
5 table spoons of olive oil
2 eggs
1 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of thyme
How to:
1. Shred all the chicken and vegetable pieces you have. As I said, you can make this recipe from scratch; if so, put some chicken in the boiling water and stir fry the vegetables.
2. Chop the fresh onion and mushrooms and stir fry them in the pan. (If you're making this from scratch, add all the vegetables in one go with salt, pepper, cumin, thyme and some water).
2. It's up to you to decide the seasoning and the spices you add. Since it is with chicken and vegetables, I prefer to add a little bit of cheese. The cheese I used in these closed pies is not a strong cheese, it is like feta cheese, very mild in taste and very light in fat. Mix all of the ingredients in one big bowl, chicken, vegetables, stir fried mushroom and onions, crumble some feta cheese and put it aside.
3. For the pastry, first separate one egg yolk to brush over the pies. Mix everything else in a big bowl. You should have a soft, a bit elastic but not sticky dough.
4. Divide your pastry into four. Roll each piece 1/2 centimeter thick on a clean surface. Then put two-three spoonfuls of the mixture on one side and close it from the other edge to form a semicircle shape. I divided my dough into four pieces; you can divide it into eight or ten pieces and have smaller pies as well. My aim was to make one big pie per person. In order to secure the sides, we press with a fork.
5. When each and every pie is ready, brush the egg yolk with some olive oil onto the pies. Bake in the 180 degrees hot oven for 40 minutes or until the pies are crispy.
6. These leftover pies will not only save your food from being wasted, but also make a perfect dinner meal with a green salad on the side, maybe some gravy sauce or yoghurt. That's what I call comfort food! Enjoy!
This is the result; below is the procedure.
Mushrooms, as many as we like.
Loads of onion; guarantee to make every dish yummy. :)
That is how my mixture looked like, before the cheese.
Now adding the cheese and it gets mouth-watering for me. I can't wait to have one warm pie.
It looks like Italian calzones as well. Except that they are really crispy on the outside!
Ready for my lunch. ;)
