Chickenherder's Pie

This was my first attempt to bake a full-size pie in the oven, rather than the individual serve pies that come out of our pie-maker. It's a chicken and vegetable pie with mashed potato on top, so it's like a shepherd's pie but without the lamb.

It's actually been a while since I made this, so I may be a little vague on some of the exact ingredients and methods.

Top

• Four or five large potatoes, peeled and chopped
• Chives (fresh or dried)
• A splash of rice milk (or regular milk)

Boil the potatoes until cooked all the way through. Drain and return to the pot.

Add chives and mash, adding rice milk as necessary to make the mash smooth but not runny.
Set aside.

(I didn't bother adding spring onions or garlic paste to the mash, since both of those ingredients go into the main pie filling and I wanted the top of the pie to be smooth.)

Filling

• 500g chicken mince
• 1 leek, chopped or sliced
• 2 spring onions, sliced
• 1 celery stick, sliced
• 1 garlic clove, crushed (or some garlic paste)
• A pinch of salt
• A tablespoon of canola oil
• A few teaspoons of cornflour
• A splash of rice milk (or regular milk)

Fry the leek in the oil in a large pan until it softens. Add the chicken mince and cook until it's sealed.

Add the other vegetables and the salt and cook until mostly done and the leek starts to brown.

To bind the mixture, sprinkle in a teaspoon of cornflour and stir in well. Add a dash of rice milk. Repeat a few times until the mixture sticks together well. Try to avoid it becoming too sloppy or ultra-stodgy.

The Pie

• 1 sheet of shortcrust (or puff) pastry
• Mashed potato (from above)
• Chicken and vegetable filling (from above)

Line a pie dish with canola oil, and press the pastry sheet into the dish. Trim around the edges with a knife.

(Normally I would have used puff pastry, but we seemed to have accidentally acquired a packet of shortcrust pastry instead.)

Spoon in the pie filling, smoothing it down so the top is pretty flat.

Cover the filling with mashed potato all the way to the edges. I also used a tablespoon to shape the mash in a spiral pattern, but whatever floats your boat.

Bake in the oven at 180ºC for... a while. I didn't time it, but you basically want to make sure the pastry is cooked and the potato on top starts to brown. Since the ingredients apart from the pastry are all cooked to begin with, it shouldn't matter too much as long as the pastry is done!