Dec 15 2008
Comfort Eating
A driech dark night, almost the shortest in the year.
- Chicken, Mushroom and Bacon Pie
This recipe had us flummoxed for most of the year, requiring as it did individual pot pies. Nigella asks for 300ml pots, although says bigger are okay, and indeed the ones she uses in the picture are 500ml. Eventually, after much wailing to the internet, Ruth came good and loaned us a couple of possibilities. We went with the deep terracotta dishes.
The pie filling smelled excellent as I cooked it up; the bacon tasted fantastic and everything else melded together in a rich sauce.
The recipe doesn’t call for the tops of the pies to be glazed or egg washed, but in the future I think I would do so. In the absence of shiny tops these didn’t look quite so bonny as in the picture.
Former flatmate Mike was over for tea and we gobbled the pies down with a wee tomato, feta and pine nut salad. This was a good contrast to the creamy rich pies.
I liked these pies a lot for what they were- hot and filling on a dreary night- but I didn’t especially rate the seasoning. For some reason the thyme flavour bothered me the whole time, and in future I think I’d just leave it out altogether. If you are using nice bacon and happy chicken there are enough other tasty flavours going on without having to add more.
