Backstory:

As usual, we watched Masterchef Australia and got superrr hungry and just HAD to try a meat pie. I had made a chicken pot pie before, but this time I was envisioning a nice spicy, curried chicken pie because it was raining and all cosy cosy. This one is not as ‘good looking’ as the previous one, because there wasn’t good sun-kissed lighting etc but DAMN it tastes gooooood (like a giant chicken puff/patty). Enjoy!

You need: (Serves 4-5)

For the Pie crust (makes top and bottom) :

• 2.5 cups maida
• 100 gms cold butter (or 200 gms if using only butter)
• 100 gms cold dalda/vanaspati
• 100 ml ice water
• 1 tsp salt (if not using salted butter)

For the filling:

• 500 gms minced chicken
• 4 onions, roughly chopped
• 4 tomatoes, roughly chopped
• 3 tbsp ginger garlic paste
• 2 green chillies, chopped
• 3 tsp coriander powder
• 2 tsp garam masala
• 1 soup cube
• 2 tbsp soya sauce
• 1/2 cup mozarella chunks (optional)
• 1 tbsp garlic chutney (optional)
• salt to taste
• 1 beaten egg

How To:

Pie crust:

1. Sieve salt and maida together
2. Put in cold cubes of butter & dalda and gently run through the dough with a fork
3. It’s very important that your butter remains cold through the process – you want the dough to become crumbly
4. Add the ice water bit by bit and mix gently until combined
5. Knead on a floured surface until it comes together into a ball
6. Divide the dough into half, flatten into two discs, cover in foil and keep in fridge for atleast 3 hours
7. Just before baking, take out one cold half and roll out the size of the pie base
8. Place a parchment paper over the base, fill with seeds and bake at 180 C for 15 minutes. This is to prevent bubbles from forming when the pie is baking with the filling, and to avoid raw dough
9. Take out the paper & seeds after it’s baked and let it cool

For the filling:

1. Marinate minced chicken with 2 tbsp ginger garlic paste
2. Roughly chop up your onions and tomatoes (it’s going into the blender anyway so don’t worry about it)
3. Heat a kadai with 1 tbsp oil, add onions and fry until golden and onions become translucent
4. Add tomatoes and fry for 5-7 minutes until the tomatoes soften down
5. Let it cool down and then blend until it becomes a smooth paste (if you blend it when it’s hot, the pressure will cause the blender top to pop off and there will be tomato paste everywhere in your kitchen)
6. In the same kadai used earlier, heat 1 tbsp oil and add 1 tbsp ginger garlic paste, chopped chillies with coriander and garam masala powder and fry
7. When the spices brown, add in the tomato-onion paste and stir and let it cook
8. Add 1/2 cup water and 1 soup cube and let the mixture boil until oil separates to the side/the top becomes glossy (indicates that the spices have cooked through)
9. Your paste should be quite thick now, but don’t add extra water because the chicken will release a lot of juices
10. Add the chicken & soya sauce and stir until chicken cooked (keep an eye on it, minced chicken cooks really fast) – add in some corn if you want
11. Taste it and adjust salt – if you want it to be spicier you can add some chilli/schezwan sauce at this point
12. Once it’s cooked, let it cool down and then you can start assembling the pie

Assembling the pie:

1. Preheat the oven to 220C
2. Let the filling cool down a bit and then fill into the lined pie dish (if it’s too hot the top pie crust layer wont puff up as it would’ve melted the butter in the dough)
3. Stuff in chunks of mozzarella randomly in different parts of the dough (it’s a fun surprise!)
4. Roll out the second cold disc of dough and cover the top of the pie, sealing the edges by pressing down gently with your finger (if you don’t seal it, the juices will bubble out and drip down the sides)
5. If there is any leftover dough, you can make designs like leaves or hearts etc and place it on top
6. Make a tiny x or star incision on top of the pastry (this is to allow the hot air to pass through and not weirdly dome the top)
7. Brush the top of the dough with the beaten egg – this will give it that lovely golden crispy finish
8. Bake at 220C for 30 minutes, check at the 10-minute mark to see if it has browned sufficiently
9. If it has, take it out and let it cool down
10. Cut biiiiig servings and serve with a side of sweet tomato relish

Tips:

1. Ensure that your butter, your water AND the dough is cold throughout – that’s the only way you’ll get a nice flaky crust
2. Cool the pie filling before filling it into the pie pan otherwise it will melt the top layer of dough and it will become dense
3. Wait for 10 mins for the pie to cool before serving – TRUST ME! I ended up doing a lot of fooo fooo fooo and burning my mouth as i bit into the hot pie (but soooo deliishhh)