Chicken and Mushroom Pie
A creamy pie built on frying the mushrooms hard and dry in a screaming-hot pan before anything else joins them, since mushrooms release so much water that adding them to an already-crowded pan just steams them grey and rubbery instead of letting them brown. Searing the chicken thighs skin-side down until deeply golden before they're chopped and folded through the sauce is what carries real roasted flavour into a dish that's otherwise built from a simple white sauce.
Prep40 min
Cook70 min
Rest20 min
Servings6
Christoph's chicken and mushroom pie, the mushrooms fried hard and dry so they brown instead of steaming grey.
Ingredients
Written for a 22 cm round tin
Units
Temperature
Servings
Chicken and mushrooms
- 800 g boneless chicken thighs, skin on if available rounded
- 30 ml neutral oil, divided rounded
- 400 g mixed mushrooms, sliced or torn rounded
- to taste fine salt rounded
Sauce
- 50 g butter rounded
- 150 g onion, finely chopped rounded
- 50 g flour rounded
- 600 ml chicken stock rounded
- 150 ml heavy cream rounded
- 10 g fresh thyme rounded
- to taste black pepper rounded
Pastry
- 500 g puff pastry, ready-rolled, store-bought rounded
- 1 egg, beaten, for egg wash rounded
Method
- Heat half the oil in a wide pan over high heat until just short of smoking. Season the chicken thighs and sear skin-side down for 5 to 6 minutes, until deeply golden, then flip and cook for 4 minutes more. Set aside.
- Wipe out the pan. Add the remaining oil and heat until very hot. Add the mushrooms in a single layer, without crowding, and leave undisturbed for 3 minutes before stirring. Cook for 8 to 10 minutes total, until deeply browned and any released liquid has evaporated. Season with salt and set aside.
- Chop the chicken into bite-sized pieces once cool enough to handle.
- Melt the butter in the same pan over medium heat. Add the onion and cook for 6 minutes, until soft.
- Stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute. Gradually whisk in the stock, then the cream, until smooth. Simmer for 5 minutes, until thickened enough to coat the back of a spoon.
- Stir in the chicken, mushrooms and thyme. Season with black pepper. Let cool for 15 to 20 minutes, until just warm rather than hot.
- Preheat the oven to 200°C (fan). Transfer the filling to a deep pie dish.
- Roll the puff pastry slightly larger than the dish and drape it over the filling, pressing the edges to seal against the rim. Trim the excess and crimp.
- Brush with beaten egg and cut a steam vent in the centre.
- Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until puffed and deeply golden brown all over.
Notes
- Fry the mushrooms hard, dry and without crowding the pan. Mushrooms are mostly water; a crowded or cool pan steams them grey and rubbery before they get the chance to brown. A hot, single layer left alone for the first few minutes is what lets them actually caramelise.
- Sear the chicken skin-side down until deeply golden before it goes anywhere near the sauce. That browned crust is where the roasted flavour comes from in a dish that’s otherwise a simple white sauce; skip the sear and the chicken just tastes boiled.
- Let the filling cool to just warm before topping with pastry, so the butter in the puff pastry doesn’t melt before it hits the oven.
- It keeps and reheats well for 3 days.
Ingredient substitutions
- Chicken breast works in place of thighs, though thighs stay juicier and take the hard sear better.
- A splash of white wine, added after the onion softens and reduced by half before the flour goes in, deepens the sauce.
- Tarragon in place of thyme gives a more classic French-leaning flavour.
From Christoph Mayer