Chicken and Chorizo Pie

I’m disheartened by my complete lack of skill with pastry and am not looking forward to the energy I need to expend to get good. Most baking things I can master and I’m happy to ignore icing as I’m bad at it. Pastry though is a basic that I should be able to do. I have no idea what the issue is but I clearly need to practise more.

I decided to make a pie this week. I don’t watch Bake Off (shock horror) but I know that they made a picnic pie in the final so thought I’d give it a go. I should have bought the pastry but attempted a lard/butter short crust thing that should have worked but didn’t. It cracked, I had to piece it together in the tin, there were a lot of holes I had to patch up – a nightmare. It didn’t help that I was making a massive pie in a 20” springform tin so the rolling and transporting was a pain.

Anyway, the filling does rock so I’m happy with that. It tastes great and I should probably try making mini pies in a muffin tin before attempting a huge pie. The pastry tastes great but just looks shocking. I’m giving guidelines below so sorry for the ramshackle recipe.

Ingredients

800g short crust pastry - Recipes were saying 500g but unless you can roll it out ultra-thin (and who wants that in a pie) and transport it to a tin in one piece then forget it. Also if you can do that you’re super human in my eyes and should be saving the world! I’m not giving a recipe for this as mine clearly didn’t work. Just buy some ready to roll.

4 chicken breasts

1 x chorizo ring (about 225g)

1 x pack of pork sausages

1 heaped tsp of hot chili pepper

1 heaped tsp cayenne pepper

1 egg, beaten

 

1.    Preheat the oven the 180°c/GM4.

2.    Make the filling as I think it benefits from sitting together for a while before cooking. Chop the chicken breasts and chorizo into small pieces. Mix with the sausage meat that you take out of the cases. Then add the spice and mush together. Hands are best. I tend not to use salt and pepper as you’re using two meats that have already been prepared so there should be enough. If you’re not sure then just fry up a small amount and taste once cooked.

3.    Grease your tin with butter. Then roll out 2/3rds of the pastry to cover the bottom and sides of the tin. I’m not going to help with method but if it cracks or breaks use water to cement it back together. It will taste fine as its pastry.

4.    Put your filling in the pie and squish down (I didn’t blind bake the case as the filling isn’t cooked and I think you only do that if the pie is going in for about 30 mins or so – this does run the risk of a soggy bottom to the pie but once again its pastry – it will taste fine).

5.    Roll out the rest of rest of your pastry to make a lid. Use egg to wash the pastry in the tin that will come in contact with the lid. Then put the lid on. Cut off excess and squish the top and side pastry together. Wash the top with egg.

6.    Cover the top of the pie with foil and bake for 45 mins. After that time take the foil off and bake for another 45 mins. Cool and serve.

N.B. Cool in the tin and don’t attempt the remove the springform sides until it’s cool and you’ve run a knife around it. Otherwise you might find that half a side comes off leaving you attempting to stick it back on with egg wash, whacking the sides around it again, shoving it in the oven and begging for it to work (it does).

Luckily looks don't matter to those I work with. Serve with mustard and piccalili.

Jetlag Sausage Bake

I always find that aeroplane food, especially after a holiday that involved a lot of good food, puts a bit of a dent in the end of the trip. This time I decided to not really eat on the plane but brought some peanuts and raisins in the hope that they would keep hunger pangs at bay for 11 hours. It also meant I got to try out a jetlag cure which says you shouldn’t eat while travelling over time zones and wait until the next meal time when you land, before eating again. I sort of kept to it – I ate some cheese pasta and a yoghurt because peanuts and raisins get fairly dull – and actually now don’t feel too bad. However this could be attributed to my determination to stay awake for about 26 hours (give or take a couple of short naps) and then sleep for about 10 hours. I can’t say it was entirely scientific.

Coming home always means that you’re not only dealing with the down from the end of a holiday but all the clothes washing and the restocking of the kitchen as well. Today I really couldn’t be bothered with much hassle at dinner and The Thew is on a massive health kick due to ‘overindulgence’ on holiday (we have differing view on what constitutes overindulgence but I’m sure I’ll get on to that in time) and the fact that he has to run 66 miles in a couple of weekends time. He also does the washing up so I thought I should be nice to him.

This is where the Jetlag Sausage Bake comes in. It’s basically things still in my fridge and a few things I could pick up on my way home. To be honest you could chuck most things in and it would work but below is what I put in.

Ingredients

1 pack of good quality sausages

1 large sweet potato

3 or 4 small to medium carrots

1 red pepper

1 red onion

A few slices of chorizo

1 blub of garlic

Some dried herbs

1.   Preheat the oven to 200° or GM6.

2.   Chop the sausages in half (or not but I like how it looks), chop the sweet potato, carrots, pepper and onion into fairly large pieces. Chuck them all into a baking tray. Add the chorizo.

3.   Cut the garlic blub in half and add to the rest of the ingredients. You can just use cloves and less garlic but I just like how the bottom of the bulb looks in the tray!

4.   Season and add some dried herbs. I went heavy on the sage because of the sausages but whatever you have will work.

5.   Add some oil and whack in the oven for about 45 minutes. Done.

6.   Eat straight from the tray if you want to minimise the washing up.

Spicy Chorizo Sausage Rolls

Mondays aren’t the most amazing day of the week for people but for me once the working hours are done there is a feeling of the week having started and energy levels rising. I used to play netball on a Monday but when that finished I thought that I should put the night, and energy, to good use and start to expand my baking. There are so many recipes I want to try but find myself making the same things – mainly because those are the ingredients I have in my cupboard and fridge. I also want to start putting more personal twists on things so Mondays will become my night to bake.

It just so happens that I have an order to fulfil tonight (I said I’d bake in exchange for a favour).These have proved so ridiculously popular that I’m normally asked for these, over cake, if people are given the choice. The fact that I use ready rolled puff pastry does mean that these can be done really fast and considering my kitchen is tiny, and heats up fast, making pastry isn’t always on option. I also have ‘hot hands’ so when making pastry I tend to have to keep putting it in the fridge which I really can’t be bothered with!

Best eaten hot but most people only get them cold because I bring them into work. The heat comes from the spices, not the chorizo, so you can adjust to taste. Fresh chilli might also work but I prefer ground spice for these.

Ingredients

1 x pack of 8 pork sausages

1 x pack of ready rolled puff pastry

2 x smaller cooking chorizo or about 1/3 of a chorizo ring, chopped into small chunks

1 tsp paprika

1 tsp cayenne pepper (less or more depending on how spicy you want it)

½ tsp very hot chilli powder (I use Barts as everything else just seems weak compared to it)

1 egg, whisked (milk will do)

1.    Pre-heat an oven to GM5 or 190°.

2.    Remove the skin from the sausages and put in a bowl. I have made these – by accident – with reduced fat sausages and it worked. You just don’t get the wonderful colour from the chorizo and paprika oozing into the pastry as much. It does seem to give a firmer sausage in the middle so try whatever you like.

3.    Add the chorizo and spices and mix together. I always start with a wooden spoon and then realise I just need to get my hand dirty. I tend to have some water in the sink so I can do quick rinses without getting the taps dirty but I’m weird like that.

4.    Roll out the pastry a bit more as I don’t find the pack size is big enough and the pastry is too thick for a sausage roll. Just a little bit longer and wider should do it. Cut in half lengthways.

5.    Divide the sausage meat in two and roll between your hands so it fit the length of the pastry strips. Egg wash one edge of each strip, fold the other side of the pastry over the meat and seal by pressing along the join with a fork. I find something deeply satisfying in creating the fork impressions in pastry.

6.    Cut into each long roll into your desired sizes – I tend to get 8 out of each – and place on a baking tray (or two) and wash with the egg. Then cut a small hole in the top of each (I use scissors) and there you go.

7.    Pop in the oven for 20-25 minutes. If you’re using two trays and they are on different shelves the ones on the lower shelf might need more time. You basically want them to go golden and look like the picture. Then they’re done.

8.    Eat.