Jamie Oliver’s turkey and leek pie

I’m posting this recipe because, well, the above picture and below prose has been getting google hits every day for the last year on my flickr account, and I figured I’d get me some of that action on my blog, too. Anyway, this pie is delicious, and I get hassled to make it by my family every time we get together.

Fry some small bits of streaky bacon with a glug of olive oil and a knob of butter in a large pan. Add some thyme. Chop your leeks, and throw them in the pan, reducing the heat to medium-low. Cover them in the butter, and leave them to cook for half an hour, stirring occasionally. Cover them while they cook. You want them to turn to mush, basically.

Then throw in your leftover chicken or turkey, dark meat, white meat, whatever you like. I used freshly-roasted chicken thigh fillets cos that’s what we had in. The fat that came out of the chicken I added to some water and Marigold stock powder; you’ll want that stock in a minute. Stir everything together on a low heat for a couple of minutes.

Then add some flour, BEFORE you add stock, and stir it in to thicken all the juices and make a lovely gloopy turkey / bacon / leek paste. When it’s all together, add a touch of double cream (as much as you like) and a slosh of stock; not enough to make it into soup, but enough so that you can sieve it through in a few minutes and use the liquid as gravy.

Stir it together on a low heat for a couple of minutes, then do the aforementioned sieving; put the turkey / bacon / leek mix in your pie dish, and put the gravy to one side.

Cover your pie filling with puff pastry (I used readymade stuff, because it’s perfectly good), score and egg-mix wash the top, and bake for 30-35 minutes at 190 until golden brown.

Then scoff it down greedily.