I Heart Cooking Clubs: Chicken, Mushroom and Bacon Pie

Nigella Lawson's Chicken, Mushroom & Bacon Pie

I HEART COOKING CLUBS  

This week’s challenge is Family Favorites.

DEBBIE  SAYS:  My Family Favorites = Comfort food!   This is a “dressed up” version of the chicken pot pie I am used to.  The Marsala wine in the sauce really adds a subtle rich flavor.   I was a little afraid of it when I first read the recipe … but am so happy I did not choose to ignore it!   Nigella has no second thoughts about taking a little “store bought” assistance with the puff pastry, so I extended it to include the use of a rotisserie chicken purchased from my local Price Chopper.

NIGELLA  SAYS:  Even the word pie is comforting.  But then, it would be hard to deny the very real lure of pastry, especially when – as here – you know you’re going to dunk it in gravied juices till its gorgeous lightness is deliciously, soggily heavy.  I concede, however, that making and rolling out your own pastry is not necessarily the speediest option, so I use bought, all-butter-, ready-rolled puff pastry and feel fine about it.  I make the pie even easier, by browning the chicken and making the sauce all in one go.  And a gold-crusted, welcoming pie for 2 in half an hour is not bad going.

CHICKEN, MUSHROOM AND BACON PIE

Ingredients

• 3 rashers streaky bacon, cut or scissored into 1-inch strips  (OK … I admit I used MORE bacon!)
• 1 teaspoon garlic infused oil  (I just added some minced garlic.)
• 2 cups chestnut mushrooms, sliced into 1/4-inch pieces  (I used baby bellas.)
• 8 ounces chicken thigh fillets cut into 1-inch pieces  (I used a store bought rotisserie chicken.)
• 2 1/2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 1/4 cups hot chicken stock
• 1 tablespoon Marsala  (This is an important ingredient … please use.)
• 1 (13-ounce) 9 by 16-inch sheet all-butter ready-rolled puff pastry

Directions

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Fry the bacon strips in the oil until beginning to crisp, then add the sliced mushrooms and soften them in the pan with the bacon.

Turn the chicken strips in the flour and thyme (you could toss them about in a freezer bag), and then melt the butter in the pan before adding the floury chicken and all the flour left in the bag.   Stir around with the bacon and mushrooms until the chicken begins to color.

Pour in the hot stock and Marsala, stirring to form a sauce and let this bubble away for about 5 minutes.

Make a pastry rim for each of your pots for the pies, by this I mean an approximately 1/2-inch strip curled around the top of the pots.  Dampen the edges to make them stick.  Cut a circle bigger than the top of each pie-pot for the lid, and then divide the chicken filling between the two.  Dampen the edges again and then pop on the top of each pie sealing the edges with your fingers or the underneath of the prongs of a fork.

(I cut out pastry rounds that are a bit bigger than the pot pie bowls and bake on a parchment lined, sheet pan.   When I try and adhere the pastry rounds to the bowls they never puff up enough.  When the rounds are puffed and browned you set them on top of your chicken pot pie bowls!) 

Cook the pies for about 20 minutes turning them around half way through cooking. Once cooked, they should puff up magnificently.