Before meeting my friend Phil from the UK I had never in my life had anything with chestnuts in it. I’m not even sure where that Christmas song about roasting chestnuts over an open fire comes from because nobody I know ever does that. Anyway, these nuts are amazing when cooked into a pot pie such as the following recipe details. Oh, and you get to spike the filling with beer or “ale” as our European friends call it.
My kids and husband really liked this pot pie…I don’t think they even knew what was in it to be perfectly honest but they still ate it up anyway. I hope you like this recipe!
Ingredients
Approx 2 tbsp cold water
For the filling:
1 tbsp garlic olive oil (or olive oil and chopped garlic)
200g chestnut mushrooms, sliced
200g chestnuts, cooked and peeled
1 yellow onion, diced
200ml ale
200ml College Inn vegetable stock
1 tbsp Hunt’s tomato paste
1 tbsp plain flour
Few sprigs of thyme and rosemary
Salt and pepper
Instructions
To make the pastry by hand, mix the flour with the butter in a bowl, rubbing the flour with your fingertips until it resembles breadcrumbs. Mix in the salt and add water until a firm dough is formed. Or if you’re lucky enough to own one, you can use a large food processor to mix the dough!
Leave the dough, wrapped in cling film, in the fridge whilst you prepare the filling.
Preheat the oven to 190 C. and put a saucepan on medium heat on the hob with 1 tbsp garlic olive oil.
Fry the onion for a few minutes until soft and translucent. Then add the mushrooms and chestnuts. Stir together and fry for 5 minutes. In the last minute, add the tbsp of flour and stir well until it dissolves.
Add the ale, stock, seasoning and herbs. Bring to the boil then reduce to a simmer and let cook for 20 minutes. Stirring occasionally and adding more ale/stock/water if it begins to dry out.
Meanwhile, take the dough out of the fridge and roll to about 3mm thick. Cut pie lids the same size and shape as your pie dish.
Create an ‘x’ shape in the middle of the lid. This will make a hole in the lid to let steam out during the cooking. Decorate however else you wish!
Spoon the mixture into your pie dish(es) and top with the pie lids, using a fork to press the edges of the lids around the dish.
Cook in the oven for 20-30 minutes until the tops turn golden brown.
Serve with a glass of ale and enjoy!
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Quick Tip: You can use more dough and line the baking dish so that the crust encases the filling or, like the recipe suggests, just place the crust on top. I opted to encase the filling with crust as you can see by my picture.
Please put in plain English thank you