Repeat: Spanish Chicken Pie

I made the Spanish Chicken Freeform pie again tonight for my daughter's Birthday dinner. It was a little different this time.

I followed the pastry instructions as closely as I could: I did not add water like last time, though the pastry did not ball up in the blender like the recipe says it should. It remained very crumbly and difficult to work with. I rolled it out between two sheets of baking paper, but it was still very crumbly. It broke most of the time when I attempted to fold it up. You can see the cracks and leakage that's burnt in the photo.

I got the stock volume correct this time so the filling was perfect. There was too much filling - I'd say 500g of chicken would be plenty.

Even though the pastry was such a pain to work with the resulting pie was absolutely delicious. When next I'm up for a bunch of frustration I'll make it again! I think I'll add a tablespoon or two of water next time.

Pear and Apple Tarte Tatin

I didn't have the energy for anything Earth-shattering tonight so I just threw together a pear and apple tarte tatin (roughly half and half: two and a bit apples, two pears). Used the same old recipe from way back. Sprinkled a little cinnamon onto the lot before baking. Very, very tasty. As usual the fruit shrunk more than I expected - I really need to pack it all in more tightly. Did I mention it was very, very tasty?

Pumpkin and Blue Cheese Freeform Pie

I wanted to make another savoury pie this weekend and decided to try to make a vegetable pie. That's a bit of a challenge for me because I'm not known for my love of chunky vegetable things (ratatouille, for example, is not something I'm very fond of). This pie jumped out at me as I was randomly wandering the Internet looking for inspiration. It's an adaptation of this recipe.

It was absolutely delicious.


Ingredients

• 500g butternut pumpkin
• 1 brown onion, sliced
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 100g blue cheese
• 25g chopped walnut (use up to 100g more if you like walnuts a lot, or sub in pecans if you like)
• 1 amount (250g flour) rough puff pastry

Method

1. Make the pastry. The rest of the preparation should give it just enough time to chill.
2. Pre-heat the oven to 225º C and line two baking sheets with foil or baking paper.
3. Peel, de-seed and slice the pumpkin flesh thinly. Coat with a bit of olive oil, some salt and the thyme and spread out onto a baking tray. Coat the onion with some oil and salt, and spread it into a single layer on the second tray. Roast the vegetables for 20 minutes.
4. Pour the balsamic vinegar over the onion to coat, and turn the oven down to 200º C and bake for another 10 minutes.
5. Roll out the pastry to make a large circle slightly larger than the tray you'll be using to bake the pie. Crumble the cheese onto the pastry leaving a 4cm border. Sprinkle the nut pieces over the cheese and the spread the pumpkin and onion mix over the top of that. Fold the 4cm overlap into the centre and bake for 40-50 minutes. Slightly longer because of the folds, but don't overcook the filling.

I modified the recipe I found at the link by using my simpler pastry. I also altered the vegetable cooking time as the instructions were unclear and my pumpkin ended up a little overcooked. Because of this I ended up not cooking the pie for quite long enough and some of the pastry was undercooked. I also used 100g less of the nuts than the linked recipe as I'm not a big fan of walnuts and I couldn't find pecans.

Repeat pie: freeform chicken and spinach

I made the freeform chicken and spinach pie on request this weekend. I left out the chorizo as planned, and then accidentally left out the lemon zest as well. As I suspected the chorizo didn't add much but the lemon was missed. They were still quite yummy, but the lemon adds an little something extra.

Pear Pie

This weekend I wanted to make a fruit pie for dessert on Saturday night. It's currently not really any particular fruit season, except maybe quince and I knew I didn't have the time to cook quince. So I went with some pears which looked yummy.

I followed the recipe at about.com Southern Food to the letter even though I was pretty certain it'd have problems. And it did.

Ingredients

• pastry for 2-crust pie (I used a double amount of my standard rough puff)
• 5 peeled, sliced fresh pears
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup flour
• 1/2 teaspoon grated lemon peel
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons butter, cut in small pieces

Method

1. Line a 9-inch pie plate with pastry. Add the sliced pears. Combine sugar, flour, lemon peel, and seasonings; sprinkle over the pears. Drizzle with the lemon juice then dot with the butter. Make a lattice top; flute edges. Cover edge of pie with a strip of foil. Bake at 220°C  for 25 minutes. Remove foil and bake about 10 minutes longer.
2. To make a lattice top crust, cut rolled out dough into 1/2-inch-wide strips. Arrange 5 to 6 dough strips across top of filling. Form the lattice by arranging more dough strips at right angle to first set of dough strips, weaving the strips if you wish. Trim dough strips even with the overhang on bottom crust. Tuck ends of dough strips and overhang under; press to seal then crimp the edges.

What Went Wrong

The pie was way too wet. When I pulled it from the oven - even after giving it an extra 10 minutes - liquid was slopping over the side of the pie when I tilted it slightly. I poured out about 1/2 cup of liquid before even attempting to cut it, and there was still a bunch of liquid in the bottom.

The pastry on the bottom wasn't fully cooked either. It wasn't that it was soggy, it wasn't completely baked.

The flavour was great but concentrated on the top - sprinkling the flour/sugar/spice mixture on the top just meant it sat there. I shook the pie a little before cooking but that didn't seem to distribute the mix much.

I think I'll try this recipe again but modify it by pre-cooking the pear to reduce the liquid and combine the flavour some more, and I'll also blind bake the case.

I've looked around the Interwebs to try to get some advice on what other things you can do in the face of a too-wet pie, but haven't really found anything (except cook it longer, which I intend to do...) I do wonder whether the ripeness of the pears (they were quite crisp) or the variety of pear (I'm not sure) might have something to do with it. Nothing I've read seems to indicate that's the case though.

Individual Shepherd's Pies

This week was a partial success. I picked up some cheap ceramic individual pie dishes so thought I'd see whether I could use them to make some little pies. It turns out I can't - not in the style I tried anyway. The pies had a rough puff case, yummy porterhouse steak (also bought cheap on special) and vegetable filling and potato mash top.

The dishes stopped the pastry from cooking properly. Perhaps with a little longer in the oven they might have cooked through properly, but I actually doubt it. I'll keep the dishes for doing other things (I'm not sure yet) and see about getting some metal tins to make individual pies in.

Chicken, Fetta, Mushroom and Spinach free form pies

During the first week of the school holidays my daughter requested two pies. The first was a repeat performance of the apple crumble pie (she'd missed out the first time around) earlier in the week. For Friday dinner she also requested a savoury pie. I knew I wouldn't have too much time and energy to make this second pie so I went with something simpler. This recipe is from Tanya Walford via the ABC website. "This pie recipe is a favourite and a staple in our home. It is as much about the spinach and cheese as it is the chicken." I varied the recipe slightly as I didn't want the chicken to cool (I knew I'd be freezing a couple of the pies for later reheating).

The recipe makes four pies.

Ingredients

• 1 chicken breast fillet, cubed into 2cm pieces
• 6 button mushrooms, sliced
• 1 chopped brown onion 
• 1 crushed clove garlic
• 1 small zucchini, grated 
• 100g fetta
• 75g fresh ricotta
• 100g baby spinach chopped up
• Grated zest of one lemon
• 1 tsp of dried oregano flakes
• 2 tbsp grated parmesan
• Salt and pepper
• 1 egg - beaten
• 1 lot of rough puff pastry (250g flour, 125g butter)

The original recipe had frozen 125g spinach and instructions about removing the moisture and... I just went with a packet of fresh baby spinach and chopped it up. Worked fine.

Also, I added a chorizo to the mix, but this turned out to be completely unnecessary and I'll skip it next time.

Method

1. Prepare the pastry an hour or more beforehand and chill in the fridge.
2. Preheat oven to 200ºC, or 180 fan forced.
3. Heat some olive oil and saute onion and garlic until softened but not coloured. 
4. Add chicken cubes and mushroom and season. Sprinkle a little (1 tbsp) flour over the lot when it's about cooked and stir that through to soak up the juices. When the chicken is cooked through, set aside.
5. In a separate bowl, crumble in fetta and ricotta, parmesan, lemon zest, oregano, spinach and zucchini. Using hands mix thoroughly and season with salt and pepper.
6. Mix the chicken etc and add into the cheese mixture. Stir well until combined.
7. Cut your pastry into 4 pieces.  Roll each out into a square (roughly 15cm sides). Place a couple on your baking tray, rotated so they're diamonds (oriented so they won't fight with the other pies when folded). Plonk some filling in the centre, brush the edges with the egg and fold opposite corners into the middle, pinching the seams together well but keeping a hole in the middle for hot steam to escape. Repeat with the other two pieces. Finish all the filling - or freeze a batch for another day.
8. Brush each pie with egg and bake in the oven for approximately 30-40 mins or until the pies are puffed and browned.