After a rather gruesome week I had 10 pairs of chicken breasts and little energy or inspiration so it’s pie! Seared the breasts whole (I just couldn’t be bothered cutting them up) and simmered them in a stock made from 5 roasted carcasses and the remnants from a roast supermarket turkey hindquarter. Once cooked I chopped up the meat and reduced the stock. The pastry is a shortcrust of butter, flour and milk.
I got 6 dinner sized pies out of this batch: 9 of the chickens were bantam australorp cockerels which had relatively large breasts for their size but still small by shop standards.
I love making shortcrust pastry; not only because raw it’s the favorite food of our 3 year old (besides chicken liver), but because it’s really hard to buy good pastry, but easy to make it. Butter and flour goes in the food processor, process and adjust by adding more of one or the other till you have something like wet sand. Add a small amount of milk, or an egg, and a wee bit of baking powder, mix, and chill for 20 mins. The only caveat is that you mustn’t overheat or overwork the dough: that would make it tough.
