Monday 30 November 2009

Chicken Pie Terrine

Most people who know me, and anyone who reads this blog, will have realised by now that I’m not much of a savoury cook. My Mum can make gorgeous dinners: roasts, homemade curries, pastas, risotto, soup, pies – everything. Me, I tend to stick to “dessert duty”. In fact of all 62 posts so far on this blog (this being the 63rd), only two could be properly classified savoury. And both still involved baking. Well, things look set to change around here.
DSCF5570 My heart is always going to lie with all things sweet. Lemon DSCF5589 tart is always going to grab me more than smoked salmon. Yet, as I have been told many a time, a career in food is going to be much harder if all I can make are cupcakes and brownies. Plus, as delicious as sweet treats are, and as enjoyable as the family finds them, its not fabulous for the waistline. So, a new Father-implemented rule has entered the kitchen: for every sweet thing I bake, a savoury thing must follow. A hard task for me personally, but one that must be followed if my new To Bake list is ever to be accomplished. Starting, with this scrumptious chicken pie/terrine. 
DSCF5578 This pie comes from the little cookery book compiled by my old Primary School a couple of years ago. The original recipe was from a Delia Smith book, but this version is altered a little. Essentially, you have a short crust pastry bowl, with a layer of sausage-meat (with spring onions, parsley and lemon), layer of chicken&nutmeg, more sausage-meat, the rest of the chicken, topped with sausage-meat and a pastry lid. The layers are what make me call it a pie/terrine as it is not quite the traditional white-sauce chicken pie. The pie took me quite a while to get together, partly I think as it was my first time properly using savoury ingredients alone. For a more seasoned cook, I’m sure this would be a breeze. There were plenty of moments throughout the preparation where I yearned for a sprinkling of sugar, spoonful of jam or handful of chocolate but I did it. And to be quite honest, I was mighty proud when my pie came out the oven, ready to be served for dinner. With no back up!
DSCF5574This pie was delicious! The sausage-meat was juicy and fragrant, the chicken was moist and fresh-tasting, and the pastry kept everything sturdily happy. The layers turned out prettily, and my favourite flavour was the juice and zest of a whole lemon in there – keeping the pie bright and light! If I were to make this again, I think I would make it less complicated by doing it how Delia does: just having three layers: two sausage-meat and one chicken in the middle. Also, the adapted recipe I was using didnt have enough pastry for a lid, so I used some puff pastry. Here is the link to the Delia recipe, with my shortcrust pastry amounts below.  Try it, its a lovely savoury thing to serve up. Now… where’s that cookie recipe…
Chicken Pie/Terrine Pastry:
100g butter
225g plain flour, sifted
Cold water to mix (about 4tbsp)
Beaten egg to glaze
  1. Make the pastry by rubbing the butter into the sifted flour until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add just enough water to make a dough, place in cling film and chill for 30minutes in the fridge. Use this pastry to line a 20cm deep pie dish.

7 comments:

Rosa's Yummy Yums said...

Oh, that is a lovely recipe! Really scrumptious!

Cheers,

Rosa

Dewi said...

Aww Lucy, this is super! I can not believe that you made such a beautiful terrine. You beat me here.

Karine said...

That is a great terrine! Thanks for sharing :)

Ash said...

Lucy, your pie looks amazing!! I'll be looking forward to your interchange of sweet and savory posts!!

peasepudding said...

Your pie looks delicious, well done! I too prefer sweet things but have branched out a bit in the past few months into savoury on my blog. It's not that I don't cook savoury, it's just harder to photograph ;o)

I love you list of things to bake by the way!

James said...

Looks good! I made a pheasant version a couple of weeks ago but minced it and added it to the minced belly pork. Looks good layered like this instead. I tried out a sour cream pastry - with half butter/ half lard, an egg yolk and sour cream instead of water. Really nice, bit flaky - maybe hot water crust is better.

apparentlyjessy said...

That is one HUGE chicken pie! I love how high it is, this would not last long in my house, my boyfriend would dig into it real quick!
I think your savoury baking adventure is off to a great start Lucy!