When both of us wants pie, we usually go for the fail-safe steak and ale, so for something a little different I remembered making a chicken and chorizo pie. After searching and searching, I found Curiously Delicious' Chicken and Chorizo Pie but couldn't find the original one I made way back before the blog. This version was the most similar to the original, bar the tomato sauce and peppers.
FYI: I used Jamie Oliver's shortcrust pastry recipe which I have reviewed here.
Yay or Nay: Yay
I've only added photos of the filling, mainly because everyone knows what a pie looks like!! The recipe straightforward and even though it wasn't like the dry original pie, this one I purposely reduced the tomato sauce down (in case of a soggy bottom!) and the chili paste (I used chili powder) gives it some heat. My only gripe is that I cannot for the life of me find real Spanish style chorizo, here in the States, it is more like a regular raw sausage.
TIP: The recipe says to use puff pastry, but I prefer shortcrust. I followed Jamie's recipe for cooking the whole pie, but I would increase the time to about 50mins as I like my pastry crispy and brown.
I love a good pie, mainly because of the crust more than the filling! I've used Jamie Oliver's recipe for a while now and figured I'd share it here. I got this from his cookbook Comfort Food but I found it here on the 'net!
Yay or Nay: Yay
So easy to make and even easier to eat!
Whenever the weather gets colder, I always have a hankering for a good ol' fashioned pie. Not a sweet one, not a weird pot pie but a proper shortcrust or puff pastry pie with a yummy, warming filling. Nothing beats steak and ale pie, unless it's a steak and Guinness one but when you can find a single can/bottle of it then an ale will do!
I usually make my crust via Jamie Oliver's recipe but the filling was from UK newspaper The Telegraph. They managed to convince Pieminster (one of the best proper pies around in the UK) to give up their recipe for Moo 2 Pie!
Yay or Nay: Yay
Although this took over 3 hours to make start to finish, it was worth it! Rich and comforting in the snowy weather, there wasn't much to fault it apart from the time it took! I took out the carrot once I had to put together the pie, I didn't add the squeeze of lemon as I didn't have any and I didn't glaze the pie with an egg wash as I didn't want to waste any more time! I was hungry, it was time to eat!!
Last week was a bit of a dud week in terms of new recipes. I had a whole stack of new recipe books but being snowed under by work I had to resort to fail proof dinners. This coming week there will be a new and interesting recipe that I haven't ever made before so I'll be leaving my comfort zone on that one.
Meanwhile, I love The Great British Bake Off (TGGBO) and the colder nights mean catching up on the latest series and being inspired by some delicious baked goods. One of the most recent technical challenges is one of my favourites, the Bakewell tart. I love the almondy taste of frangipane and a crispy, buttery base all tied together with fruity raspberries. I have cake slash tart as I don't really like icing so with the cake recipe I get to have the bakewell flavours without all that excess sugar. I could have made it without the base but it wouldn't be a tart without one! So I combined the two together; the tart base was from here and the cake from here!
Yay or Nay: mid-Yay to the cake, Nay to the base
The base was more crispy and flaky as opposed to buttery and crumbly for me so I had to give it a Nay. For a savory pie this recipe would have worked better, I admit that I did add more water and less butter than the recipe but I think I was expecting more of a shortcrust. The cake however was good, held together although hard to spread when wet. There wasn't a huge almond taste to it (I didn't have any almond extract) so was mild but worked as a vanilla-like sponge. I would however, put waaaay more raspberries in it as I thought I covered the middle but once it was baked they disappeared a little.
