Chicken, leek and bacon pot pie

Serves 4-6

Ingredients:

50g buttter
4 slices streaky bacon, chopped
1 large leek, washed and chopped
2 tsp fine sea salt salt (use less if your stock is seasoned)
Lots of black pepper
2 carrot, peeled and chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
4 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
10g sage, leaves picked and chopped
5g thyme, leaves picked and chopped
1/4 cup plain flour
1/4 cup white wine
2 cups chicken stock
1 cup pure cream
3 tbls crème fraiche
2 large chicken breasts cooked and shredded* (about 4 cups of meat)
1-2 sheets all butter puff pastry cut into 5cm squares (One sheet of Careme was enough to cover the surface of a 30cm wide pan)
1 egg to egg wash
Chopped parsley to garnish, optional

 *You can poach the chicken breasts in the chicken stock youll use for the pie or roast them or pan fry them or even pull the meat from a rotisserie chicken.

Method:

Preheat your oven to 240C conventional (220C fan-forced).

Heat a wide oven safe sautee pan (approx. 30cm wide) over medium heat.  Add in the butter, bacon and leeks and sautee for about 2-3 minutes.  Add in the remaining vegetables and herbs with half the salt and black pepper and sautee for a further 5-6 minutes.

Add in the flour and toss together to coat the flour in the butter. Follow that with the white wine and let that cook out for about a minute before adding in the stock, cream, crème fraiche and remaining salt and black pepper. Bring to a simmer and taste for seasoning. Adjust as needed.

Fold in the shredded chicken and then turn the heat off. Top the pie with overlapping squares of the pastry until you’ve covered almost the entire surface. Brush with egg wash and bake for 25 minutes. After 25 minutes reduce the heat to 180C conventional (160C fan-forced) for the remaining 20 minutes.

 Allow this to sit at room temperature for at least 10-15 minutes before cutting into it to serve. Garnish with chopped parsley, is using.