Chicken & Vege Picnic Pies
These gorgeous pies are perfect to bring along to a picnic with friends and family. Picture cracking a cool ginger beer and dipping one of these crispy parcels of goodness into some old-school tomato sauce. They are also a no-brainer for fussy toddler meals, laden with hidden vegetables and buttery leek. Makes about 12 party pies.
Ingredients
1 leek, finely sliced
1 eschalot, finely sliced
500g of free range chicken mince*
Handful of parsley, finely chopped
2 small zucchini, finely chopped
Pinch of fresh thyme
Sprig of rosemary
100g of frozen peas
1 cup of chicken or vegetable stock ( I have mentioned this before but I really like Massel stock cubes which are vegan but taste as good as any other stock cube.)
Frozen puff pastry 3-4 sheets (take it out of the freezer about 20 minutes before using).
1 free range egg (for brushing on pastry)
if you would like to make a vegetarian alternative you could trade the chicken out for a block of firm tofu or for a super decadent taste you could use haloumi (250g) finely chopped. Even half tofu and half haloumi would be delicious!
Method
Preheat the oven to 180ºC and grease two 6 hole muffin tins with butter and/or olive oil spray.
Heat a fry pan on medium heat with a knob of butter and a splash of olive oil. Fry the leek and eschalot until soft and buttery, make sure the heat is on a low-medium temperature so you slowly cook it and don’t brown too much (say between 5-10 minutes).
Add the chicken mince to the leek and eschalot mixture and cook until broken up and resembling cooked mince meat, it will be white in colour, this will take another 5 minutes or so. If you are doing the vegetarian version then sub the chicken out with tofu and/or haloumi at this step.
Add the finely chopped zucchini, the rosemary and thyme and then stir through until well combined and cooking down for a few minutes.
Season to taste with pepper and salt.
Add the frozen peas and mix through then add a cup of chicken or vegetable stock.
Cook the mixture down for another 5-10 minutes then take off the heat and put aside.
Lay out the defrosted puff pastry sheets and make sure they are defrosted but not too warm otherwise they will be difficult to work with. Use a martini glass rim (or similar size glass) to cut four holes in one sheet, these will be the pie bases. Place the pie bases into the well greased muffin tins.
Scoop about 1-2 heaped dessert spoons into each pie base.
Once they have all been filled you are going to put a pie lid on each of the filled bases. I find this part a little fiddly because the pie lids are quite small and it can be tricky to seal them to the base. Just remember, these pies will look fantastic and rustic regardless of how you cut the pie lid. I don’t like wasting any of the pastry so I use the remaining pastry that you cut the pie bases from as the lid pastry. If you are doing this, just attach the pieces of pastry in strips across the top of the pies then be sure to poke some small holes to let the air escape. Alternatively, you can cut small pie lids using the top of a jam jar, or you can just freestyle and free cut circles to the size you think is appropriate.
All of the pies should have their lids on now with a couple of small holes poked in the top with a knife. Once this is done you can beat the egg in a bowl and then use a pastry brush (or clean, never used, paint brush) to cover the top of each pie lid with egg wash. This will make the pies gorgeous, golden and crispy when they come out of the oven.
Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown. They will rise and be beautiful and puffy. They will be cooked through well due to the small size and muffin tin hack. Leave them to cool in the tin for 5 minutes then take them out and put them on a rack to cool further.
Serve warm or hot with homemade or old school store bought tomato ketchup. If you need to reheat them to eat later then make sure you do so in the oven so they keep their crispiness. These are awesome as a picnic staple or midweek kiddo meal. Enjoy!