Chicken, Buttermilk and Wild Garlic Pie

Chicken, Buttermilk and Wild Garlic Pie






Why this one?
Who doesn't love a pie?! Crispy, buttery pastry, filled with smooth, flavoursome filling - there's nothing quite like it. This one specifically took my fancy because of the wild garlic. The picture in the book shows the filling as being bright green - a bright green pie has got to be worth a go.

I had a few issues trying to get hold of the wild garlic until my darling friend said she had loads in a wooded area behind her house. Once I'd got hold of the garlic I could give the dish ago.

Find the recipe here...https://www.cuisine.co.nz/recipe/chicken-buttermilk-wild-garlic-pie/

Any substitutes?
Only one this time and a very minor substitution in my book. 
I didn't have any pomace oil, I still don't actually know what it is so used rapeseed oil instead.

The actual cooking of the dish
One thing that's happened as a result of cooking from SLOW and following a recipe is that some of my basic kitchen skills have improved. This recipe called for the chicken to be browned, whenever I have done this before I have never managed to quite get the browning right. Fears over the meat burning therefore not having the pan hot enough and moving the meat around too often preventing the gorgeous caramelisation were the main culprits, however when cooking this dish I had the pan very hot and just left the chicken for about 5-8 minutes on each side and it really worked.

Once that was done the other filling ingredients were cooked and the sauce left to bubble away. At this point, to me the recipe became unclear. I couldn't see anywhere where it said to put the chicken back in the sauce mixture but later in the recipe it stated to cook the sauce "until the meat is falling apart".  Confusion addled, my tired brain and I made a decisions and add the chicken at the beginning of the sauce cooking process - it seemed to work, although the chicken never 'fell apart'. Maybe more cooking time was needed but I was obeying the recipe rules and following the timings as instructed. 

From then on my basic kitchen skills which I thought had improved seemed to desert me. I needed to turn the vibrant green leaves of the wild garlic into a puree. As requested I used my food processsor a.k.a the 'whazzing machine' (much better term if you ask me). I defiantly didn't manage to make it into a puree despite many minutes of blending. It was more like finely chopped leaves.

Pastry time - it said to make it in the whazzing machine, and I'd done this a few times before with good results but this time I was too concerned with following the instructions in the book, and the warning not to make the dough too wet, that I didn't follow my cooking gut. So my pastry was way too dry and when it came to use it, I couldn't roll it and I ended up having to GRATE the pastry into the dish. Not my finest work. Grating was OK for the base of the pie but not so much for the top. I managed to create a patchwork of odd bits of pastry stuck together. When it went into the oven it really didn't look like the picture from the book - the smooth pastry topped with wild garlic shaped leaves made of  pastry, mine looked like a 5 year olds attempt at a single coloured Elmer the patchwork elephant. 

But into the oven it went - the smell in the house was divine. Kind of spicy and comforting - the way only chicken pie can really be - with the added heat of cayenne pepper in the pastry. 





What I thought
So this section is going to start with a story. One time, a long time ago, I made a chicken pie and found a small ball of pale coloured dough in the freezer. I didn't label things back then. When we went to eat the pie, it had such a sweetness to it and the pastry was super crumbly. After many mouthfuls I realised what I thought was pastry was in fact a biscuit dough. I had topped my pie with biscuit dough, and I didn't hate it. 

I bring this story up because this wild garlic pie had a similar vibe. Although not as sweet as that, there was something reminiscent of the, now infamous, biscuit dough pie.  

The flavour was excellent, the cayenne pepper adding a heat, while the wild garlic added subtle garlicky tones - not overpowering like cloves of garlic can be.

You remember this pie was supposed to have a bright green filling? Well mine looked like the colour of bog - a major disappointment to me.






Initially I was concerned about the consistency of the sauce, too thin - you know my issues with that. But it wasn't, it had a good viscosity however the pie did feel quite wet. I think it's because the sauce and the pastry merged creating a bit of a soggy mixture - think the bottom of a dumpling when it's been cooked on top of a stew.

Still on the texture lines, the instructions didn't require the chicken to be cut up but I actually think for me this detracted from my enjoyment, it felt like I was eating mouthful after mouthful of bits of chicken without the silky, flavour bomb of the sauce - the opposite of the true joy of a pie, each forkful loaded with meat, sauce and pastry.

I know this sounds like a complete slagging off of the dish - it's not. It was good, but some improvements were needed for my taste. It's difficult to know if the things I didn't enjoy came from my errors or from the instructions themselves.

Difficulty: I'd like to say easy but clearly I had some errors so I am going to say tricky. 

Tastiness rating: 7/10 - the flavour was great but a few texture issues for me.

Next time I'd....use the filling mixture but cut up the chicken into smaller bits but maybe just buy some pastry and sacrifice the spicy cheeseyness of the homemade stuff.