Chicken, Mushroom and Bacon Pie

By MJH

Ingredients

• 3 rashers streaky bacon, cut or scissored into 1-inch strips
• 1 teaspoon garlic infused oil
• 2 cups chestnut mushrooms, sliced into 1/4-inch pieces
• 8 ounces chicken thigh fillets cut into 1-inch pieces
• 2 1/2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 1/4 cups hot chicken stock
• 1 tablespoon Marsala (This is an important ingredient … please use.)
• 1 (13-ounce) 9 by 16-inch sheet all-butter ready-rolled puff pastry
• Substitution for Marsala: 1/4 cup white wine and 1 tsp brandy

Details

Adapted from debbmarie.wordpress.com

Preparation

Step 1

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.
Fry the bacon strips in the oil until beginning to crisp, then add the sliced mushrooms and soften them in the pan with the bacon.

Turn the chicken strips in the flour and thyme (you could toss them about in a freezer bag), and then melt the butter in the pan before adding the floury chicken and all the flour left in the bag.
Stir around with the bacon and mushrooms until the chicken begins to color.

Pour in the hot stock and Marsala, stirring to form a sauce and let this bubble away for about 5 minutes.

Make a pastry rim for each of your pots for the pies, by this I mean an approximately 1/2-inch strip curled around the top of the pots.
Dampen the edges to make them stick.
Cut a circle bigger than the top of each pie-pot for the lid, and then divide the chicken filling between the two.
Dampen the edges again and then pop on the top of each pie sealing the edges with your fingers or the underneath of the prongs of a fork.
Cook the pies for about 20 minutes turning them around half way through cooking.
Once cooked, they should puff up magnificently.