I had friends over for dinner, and there seems to be many leftovers: chicken, mushrooms, corn, peas and mashed potatoes. In the freezer I had some of the pastry that was left over from the artichoke pie. So what better way to make use of all these nice ingredients! If you don’t have home made pastry, you can line your pan with philo dough, or puff pastry. The end result was really great!
Ingredients 1 cup chicken cut up in small pieces 1 cup mushrooms, chopped up ½ cup peas ½ cup corn 2 tablespoonfuls olive oil 1 large clove of garlic minced ½ cup white wine A good pinch of tarragon 2 tablespoonfuls parsley 1 spring fresh thyme (if you don’t have fresh thyme use a pinch of dried) Salt, pepper
Ingredients for the béchamel sauce 3 knobs of butter or margarine 2 tablespoonfuls flour 1 ½ cup milk or chicken stock 1 egg beaten 1 tspDijonmustard 2 – 3 dropsTabascosauce Salt, pepper
Ingredients for the mashed potatoes 3 – 4 medium potatoes (it depends on their size) About 2 cups of warm milk ½ cup cream, low fat 2 tablespoonfuls butter or margarine 3 – 4 tablespoonfuls grated cheese (as much as you like and any cheese you like) Salt, pepper
Directions
Put the chicken, mushrooms, garlic, corn, peas and finely chopped parsley and thyme in a pan and sauté for a few minutes in the oil. Add the wine and when it evaporates, taste and check the seasonings.
Prepare the béchamel sauce. Melt the butter or margarine in a small pot, add the flour and stir until incorporated. Add the milk or stock slowly stirring the whole time, until you obtain a thick creamy sauce. Add the mustard and theTabasco sauce. Beat the egg, and add it to the sauce while stirring. Keep a little egg to brush the top of the pie. Taste and adjust seasonings.
Add the béchamel sauce to the chicken mixture, stir well and let the filling cool down.
Boil the potatoes until very tender (if you haven’t any leftovers.) Mash the potatoes and add the milk, the cream, the butter or margarine, the grated cheese, salt and pepper. Taste and adjust seasonings. The mashed potatoes should be quite firm.
Butter the baking pan and line it with the dough. If you wish to make the dough, have a look at the recipe as given for the artichoke pie.
Put the filling on top of the dough, and cover the lot with the mashed potatoes. If you don’t like the mashed potatoes, you can cover the top with more dough. Add a bit of water to the egg you have kept, and brush the top of your pie.
Bake in a preheated oven at 180oC (bottom element so that the dough at the bottom can brown nicely), for about 45 – 50 minutes. If needed, you can turn on the top element to brown the top of the pie.
You can serve it for lunch or dinner with a nice green salad or at any time as a snack.