The Best Chicken and Sweet Leek Pie with Flaky Pastry

Courtesy of Jamie's Dinner published by Penguin Books

Serves 4

Olive Oil
2 knobs of butter
1kg boned and skinned chicken thighs, cut into pieces
2 medium leeks, trimmed, washed and sliced into 1cm pieces
2 carrots, peeled and roughly chopped
3 sticks of celery, finely sliced
A small handful of thyme, leaves picked.
2 tbsp flour
1 wineglass of white wine
285ml milk
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
255g good pork sausages
1 x 500g pack of all-butter puff pastry
1 egg

Preheat oven to 220C
1. Take a large casserole pot and add a lug of olive oil and butter. Add the chicken, leeks, carrots, celery and thyme and cook slowly on the hob for 15 minutes.
2. Turn the heat right up, add the flour, and keep stirring for a couple of minutes.
3. Add the wine, a wineglass of water and the milk. Season with a little salt and pepper, then cover and simmer very slowly on the hob for 30-40 minutes until chicken is tender. Stir every so often so it doesn't catch on the bottom of the pan. The sauce should be loose but quite thick. Keep simmering with lid off if it is not quite thick enough.
4. Pour chicken mixture into pie dish. Squeeze the meat out of the sausage skins, roll into balls, brown them into a little oil and sprinkle them over the stew.
5. Roll out pastry to about 0.5cm thick. Egg-wash the rim of the dish and drape over pastry, using a knife to trim the edge of the dish.
6. Egg-wash the top of the pastry to make it go golden while cooking, then pinch it to crimp it round the edges. Use back of knife to lightly criss-cross the top - allows the pastry to go crisp and flaky.
7. Cook the pie in centre of oven for 30 to 40 minutes, until golden on top.

This makes a lovely Sunday Lunch; A lot of reading but worth it! The pie cooks quicker in my oven than stated - so watch it so it doesn't burn. Jamie's says that it can also be a stew; just stop at Step 4.