Chicken and Brie Pie

Original Recipe
(my adjustments follow on)

1 small cooked chicken (cooled)
4 sheets flaky or filo pastry (need more filo)
1 onion
1 tblsp butter
1 large bunch spinach / silverbeet roughly chopped
1/2 teaspn grated nutmeg
250gm sour cream
1 egg
salt/pepper
150g brie, thinly sliced

Discard fat and skin from chicken and roughly dice meat. Line a deep sided pie dish with pastry, covering bottom and sides. Saute onion in butter until soft, add spinach and nutmeg, cook till all liquid has evaporated. Spread over pastry base. Cover with chicken meat. Blend sour cream, egg and salt/pepper and pour over top. Cover with slices of brie. Cover with pastry and bake at 200 degrees Celsius for 10 minutes then 170 degress for 25 minutes - basically until pastry is golden.

My adjustments:

4 chicken breasts with the skin removed. melt a little butter in a saute pan with a lid. Put chicken in, sprinkle with sea salt and a few grinds of black pepper, turn over and repeat. Squeeze in juice of one lemon, swirl it round the pan and put the lid on. Poach for 20-25 minutes on low-medium heat turning once.

This provides you with 4 beautifully flavoured chicken breasts which can then be used in a variety of recipes or eaten as they are (hot or cold). You also have a quantity of lemon/chicken stock for use in other dishes or: Occasionally I throw in a handful of roughly chopped spring onions and parsley towards the end of cooking. Combine with a bit of cream and you have an excellent sauce. A splash of white wine can be used instead of lemon juice.

Dice chicken into cubes about 1-1.5 cm across.

I often use 2 small onions and saute until soft in olive oil. If using spinach I don't cook until all the liquid is gone. I wash the spinach and dry it extremely well (salad spinner dry) and then just push it around in the pan with the onions until mixed. Any more than that and it goes squishy and loses colour etc.

I will also use 2 eggs with the sour cream as it gives a better consistency when cooked.

I also use two small rounds of brie. Some of it gets eaten as it is being sliced or layered on the top of the pie.