After the Races pie January 09, 2016 22:20

Following on from our last blog post, in Ma Pheasant’s special handwritten recipe book is a mouth-watering dish perfect for these dark, grey, wet January Days. After the Races pie is one of the first recipes scribbled in her psychedelic notebook and it’s probably the one that’s been cooked the most since she first wrote it in, back when she was but a newly married slip of a girl and something called the Jumbo Jet had just been invented.

It’s essentially a chicken and ham pie packed full of slow cooked vegetables that have been allowed to simmer away on the hob for a couple of hours. It is rich, velvety with butter and perfect comfort food for rainy evenings. The antidote to fast food, it’s leisurely food and although it’s not complicated you need to take some time over it as it requires a lot of chopping, stirring and simmering.

After the Races Pie is easily adaptable - if you want to tart it up a bit, a handful of chopped tarragon and the juice of a lemon elevates it in a fairly cheffy direction; heated up the next day with big squeeze of brown sauce on the side is a failsafe hangover soother.

Ingredients

Large knob of butter

3 onions

3 peppers

4 sticks celery

3 leeks

2 cloves garlic

1 tbsp chopped parsley

100g flour

225g mushrooms

3 bay leaves

750ml chicken stock

450g cooked ham

750g cooked chicken

350g pastry

1 beaten egg

Method

Roughly chop the onions, peppers, celery, leeks and garlic. Melt the butter over a low heat and sweat the vegetables in it until they are soft (this will take at least half an hour but the longer you take with this stage the better). Add the mushrooms until they’re also soft and then stir in the flour and some salt and pepper. Allow the flour to cook out for a couple of minutes, add the chicken stock, bring to the boil and then simmer gently.

Add the ham and chicken and simmer for a few more minutes. Put the filling into a pie dish, top with the pastry and brush over the beaten egg. Bake in a medium oven for half an hour or until the pastry is done.

And the pie is done. Delicioso.