This appealing image is from Jamie Oliver’s cookbook, Jamie’s Dinners. My brood ate their pie so fast, I didn’t have a chance to get a single shot in!

Based on how enthusiastically my children descend upon dinner, an onlooker could be easily mistaken for thinking that they have not had a single morsel of food pass their lips all day. On the contrary. Despite an ample breakfast before leaving for school, followed by morning tea sustenance, then a cooler bag bursting with various lunch items, and the “I’m starving” after school snack, they always have an appetite waiting in the wings as the sun sets. This evening they devoured an enormous home cooked Tasty Chicken and Sweet Leek Pie and one of my “Big Salads” – lots of crunchy lettuce, cucumbers, sweet-as-sweet can be grape tomatoes, creamy olives and salty greek feta all drizzled with vino cotto and olive oil. 

I followed Jamie Oliver’s recipe for the pie which I have made before to much applause from my family.  Honestly, pop some pastry on top of a sensational filling and watch it disappear fast! Even picky eaters will ignore the “green bits” and “orange stuff” when it is covered in flaky pastry. This is an easy way to encourage picky eaters to extend their tastebuds and discover wonderful, new flavours. 

I am a huge fan of including celery in chicken based dishes such as this pie. Crisp green celery may look like an ordinary vegetable, but it produces such wonderful, lip-smacking savoury flavour when gently sautéed in butter and olive oil. An excellent and often overlooked flavour base. 

The recipe below will feed 4 people. I doubled this successfully for my family of 8 and only made a couple of minor alterations to the original recipe. Jamie Oliver recommends also including pork sausages in the pie mixture. However, this time I used chicken and rocket sausages for a change which still added that extra “kick” to the dish but didn’t overpower it, which I find the pork sausages can do depending on the blend of ingredients. 

I also substituted chicken tenderloins for Jamie’s chicken leg meat, because that’s what I always have in the freezer and find it easier to slice in a hurry. As a result the method had to change to accommodate a shorter cooking time. 

Tasty Chicken and Sweet Leek Pie to serve 4 people

You will need a pie dish that measures about 24 – 26 cm in diameter. 

Ingredients
olive oil
unsalted butter (I used 50 grams)
2 medium leeks – use the white part only and slice into 1cm pieces
2 large carrots roughly chopped into bite sized pieces
2 sticks of celery, finely diced
a small handful of fresh thyme leaves or 1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 kg chicken tenderloins cut into bite sized pieces
2 tablespoons plain flour
250 ml white wine
285ml milk
sea salt and black pepper to taste
255 grams good quality pork or chicken sausages – the meat needs to be squeezed out of the casings. 
ready made butter puff pastry, defrosted – 2 – 3 large squares overlapped across your pie dish to cover the mixture completely. 
1 egg

Warm up the olive oil and butter over a low heat and add all of the vegetables, thyme, salt and pepper. Sauté for 15 minutes to release the flavours. 

Set aside the vegetables in a clean bowl. Toss the chicken in another bowl with the flour. Add a little more olive oil and quickly brown the chicken and sausage meat together. Do this in 2 batches to prevent overcrowding. 

Add back the vegetables, pour in the white wine and bring to the boil for 1 minute to cook off the alcohol. Pour in the milk, taste and adjust seasoning if needed. Clamp on the lid and simmer on LOW for 20 minutes. You will need to stir the mixture every now and then to prevent sticking.

Allow the mixture to cool slightly. TIP – I plunged the pot into cold water in the sink for 5 minutes and then placed it in the fridge until I was ready to assemble my pie. 

When you are ready to cook the pie, turn on the oven to preheat at 200 degrees fan-forced. Scrape the pie mixture into your pie dish and cover with the pasty making sure it goes to the very edge of the pie dish. Cut off any overhanging bits of pastry and if you are feeling creative, fashion them into decorative shapes to stick on top of the pie. You will need to brush the pastry with beaten egg first to ensure the pastry shapes stick. Make sure all of the pastry is coated with the beaten egg which will give it a deep golden glow once cooked. 

Place in the oven for 20 minutes until your pastry is golden and crisp and the pie fills your kitchen with wholesome home cooked aromas.