Bring on the pies …

If ever there was an excuse to indulge in your favourite pie it's now! It couldn't get much worse - lockdown, winter and snow!

Here's the “pick a pie” series. There are three elements to any pie :

the filling

the sauce

the lid

I've decided to make a chicken and mushroom pie – it's an excellent way to use leftovers too and since I mentioned exactly that in the first winter menu – option 1 “slow cook a whole chicken” it seems the logical place to begin. The following recipe for the filling and the sauce uses both the leftover chicken and the anise infused chicken stock too.

The filling

Chicken and Mushroom - just four ingredients

250g chestnut mushrooms – sautéed in a drop of

rapeseed oil until they have absorbed all the liquid

and have some colour – see the tip given**

diced leftover roast chicken – a mixture of

breast and leg meat – the equivalent of one

breast per person

200ml of chicken stock

Velouté sauce

The sauce

Just in case you didn't know, a Velouté sauce is a light white sauce made with stock and a roux.

You'll need :

15g unsalted butter

15g plain flour

½ tsp Dijon mustard

200ml double cream

salt and black pepper

Melt the butter, take the pan off the heat, add the flour and whisk. Return to the heat and cook out the flour, gently, for 2/3 mins, stirring continuously – do not walk away.

Then tip your cold stock straight into the roux and whisk until smooth, then cook on a low heat for 30 minutes. Season with salt and black pepper.

Add the mustard and cream and simmer for 5 minutes.

Your sauce should be fairly stiff. Fold through the mushrooms and chicken, cover and set aside to cool then fridge until you're ready to rock and roll.

I should add that I've frozen this filling and it's every bit as good from the freezer.

**Before we move on to your choice of lid - a quick tip about mushrooms and minimising food waste. Have you got old mushrooms that are past their best? Using a little alchemy you can “turn something ordinary into something extraordinary” - transform your sad mushrooms and enhance their flavour by adding a glug of red wine or very dry sherry when sautéing. A glug is 1-2 tablespoons and should be added when sautéing the mushrooms, cook out gently until all the liquid is absorbed.

Now for your choice of lid …