Sage & Butternut pie with Chicken or Turkey

by Jack Regnart

A few weeks ago we had been talking about making a pie basically every day. We were all craving it, but we really couldn't summon the effort to do so. Then finally we did it. Pie was created and consumed at a stunning pace.

Once the dust settled, poker was played and toxic beverages were consumed. We awoke the next day wondering "what did we actually put in the pie?".

Here's an attempt to relate that.

Pastry

Makes 10 inches, depending on dish size you may want to double this recipe. We used a serving for the base and one for the top.

This recipe is pretty spot on in relation to the above photo.

Ingredients

  • 175g butter
  • 3 cups flour
  • 1 ½ cups margarine
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tbsp sugar
  • ½ cups iced water

Rub the butter and margarine into the flour until crumbly.

Slowly add water and continue to combine until it forms a ball.

Place in bowl and cover with tea towel. Leave to sit for 30 minutes.

Halve if necessary, roll out and place in pie dish.

This pie recipe was quite liquidy so we blind baked the pastry in the oven for 20 minutes. The best method seems to be to use beans or pastry weights to ensure the pastry doesn't bubble and deform. If you use the docking method (piercing the pastry to create air holes) it seems a bit unreliable so be sure to check and pierce any enourmous mishappen bubbles that may appear in your pastry base ;)

Notes

For an easy method of transferring the pastry to the pie dish, fold the rolled out pastry over a rolling pin and then lay it into the pan... rather than clumsily attempting to pick up a large sheet of pastry on its own.

Don't try and make fancy flowers out of pastry. You'll fail and it will look daft.

Pie

Here lies the problem, I have no idea how this went together.

Pie Ingredients

  • jointed chicken, save the carcass for later or use for stock
  • 1 cup butter (clarified is better but not essential)
  • ¾-1 cup flour, sifted
  • 500ml chicken stock
  • an onion, diced
  • butternut squash (or similar squash relation)
  • dried chilli to taste
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp pepper
  • 1 tsp dried parsley
  • 1 tsp dried basil
  • a few sprigs of fresh sage
  • a large carrot, or a few small ones
  • a couple of potatoes cut into small cubes
Stock (if you make it)
  • Corn on the cob (Chopped up)
  • White onion
  • 2 Red onions
  • 2 Whole carrots
  • Handful of Safe
  • Little bit less Thyme
  • Salt & Pepper
  • Chicken stock cube (halved)
  • Maggi onion cube
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • 1ltr of water (reduce to 500ml-ish)

We actually left the stock on overnight (by accident) which resulted in a super tasty stock after it had reduced a fair amount (and luckily not entirely).

Roasted butternut squash

Slice up the butternet squash into 1 inch pieces and roast in the oven at a medium-high heat for the perfect amount of time so that it's not burnt but is nice and juicy... Let's say 25-35 minutes.

Onion roux steps

Melt the butter in a saucepan over a medium-high heat.

Once melted, add some of the diced onion as an act of complete sacrilege against a traditional roux.

Slowly add the flour and whisk like a madman.

Once the flour has lost it's 'raw' smell (not that you can tell with the onion in there) you should be at the white stage of the roux. It's about 5-10 minutes of whisking.

We then added the 500ml of chicken stock to thin it out so that it combined well into the pie mixture.

Chicken rub

Combine dried chilli, salt, pepper, parsley, and basil in a mortar and pestle.

Pat the chicken dry with a piece of kitchen towel, or if you're desperate a tea towel. Using toilet paper at this stage is asking for burnt paper in your chicken.

Coat the chicken with the rub, ensure it's really manhandled on there.

Turkey Rub (Instead of Chicken if preferred)

There was a day we only had turkey rather than chicken, we used the same recipe (sort of) but with this rub instead.

  • Olive oil
  • Salt & Pepper
  • Garlic
  • Chicken stock cube
  • Sage

This is a lot wetter than the chicken rub, so you don't really need to dry out the meat.

Bringing things together

The potato will take longest to cook. You want to cut them up into small cubes, perhaps ½inch in size. Heat up a skillet and fry potatoes with some oil for around 10 minutes.

Take out the potatoes and now fry off the Chicken (or Turkey) and seal. This shouldn't take too long and once it's done you can add the potatoes back in, and add the rest of the veg.

Give it around 10 minutes and it's time to fill the pie.

You should have a pie base that you have blind baked and docked. Fill this with the dry-ish pie mix and then evenly pour the roux & stock combo over the top. If it goes through into the dish below through a hole in the pastry don't worry it's not the end of the world.

The pie shown here was made with Turkey and also 'Stir-in' pastry made with oil - we were desperate for pie and there was no butter! It wasn't quite as crumbly, but it still tasted great.

Once you've got the mixture in, it's time to get the top on. This can be a bit hazardous, it’s easy to put a hole in it, or stretch it too far. Be careful and it will go on nicely! Now you can glaze the top which also helps to seal up the edges. Just beat an egg and then paint it (or use your fingers) onto the top of the pie crust. I put some holes in the top, just incase the pastry decided to bellow madly and pull away from the sides. It either worked, or wasn’t a risk in the first place :)

Now all you need to do it stick it in the oven. As I may have mentioned before there isn’t much choice in oven temperature here. 200° would probably do it, and leave it in for 35-45 minutes. After about 30 minutes i’d give it a look every now and then to ensure you aren’t burning the top! Turn it down, or move the pie lower in the oven if you are.