Chicken, Ham & Leek Pie Recipe

COOK meals are perfect for when you fancy a night off cooking … something even the most passionate home cook needs now and again. But how do our prices compare with making it yourself?

We followed our recipe for two for Chicken, Ham & Leek Pie at home and found it was more expensive getting the ingredients from the supermarket.

We based this on checking Sainsbury’s online ingredient prices in October 22 and now we have updated to most recent prices in February 22, for a two portion recipe. We didn't include ingredients we had in the fridge or kitchen cupboard (including any alcohol) and used the smallest available amounts of what we needed.

Our shopping list for the recipe below included:  Free range chicken breasts - diced - skins removed, Small leek - trimmed and sliced, Onion - finely diced, Double cream, Chopped parsley, Ham hock - shredded , Shortcrust pastry, Chopped fresh thyme. Everything else we had already.

If you'd prefer to make it yourself, our recipe for a 2 portion is below.  As freezer connoisseurs we'd always recommend batch cooking for the absolute best value recipe - scroll to the end for some tips.

Chicken, Ham & Leek Pie Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 tbsp Rapeseed or olive oil
• 200g Free range chicken breasts, diced, skins removed
• 20g Butter
• 1 Small leek, trimmed and sliced
• 1/3 Onion, finely diced
• ½ tbsp Plain flour, plus extra for dusting
• 65 ml White wine
• 135 ml Chicken stock
• 85 ml Double cream
• 85 ml Semi skimmed milk
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• ½ Lemon, juiced
• ½ tbsp Chopped parsley
• 100g Ham hock, shredded
• 170g Shortcrust pastry
• 1 Egg, beaten
• 1/3 tsp Chopped fresh thyme

Method: 

STEP 1. Heat half the oil in a large frying pan and brown the chicken for about 5 mins. Tip into an ovenproof pie dish, then evenly scatter over the ham. Heat the remaining oil and butter, add the onions and soften for 2-3 mins. Add the leeks and cook for a further 2 minutes, then stir in the flour.

STEP 2. Pour in the white wine and chicken stock. Bring to the boil, stirring continuously, until reduced by half. Take off the heat, then stir in the lemon juice, cream, milk and season to taste. Pour over the pie filling and leave to cool slightly before covering with pastry.

STEP 3. Unroll the pastry and cut off a small strip to make decorations (if you like). Roll the remainder to fit the dish and place on top of the pie. Use a fork to crimp the edges and press the pastry to the edge of the dish. Make a small hole in the centre.

STEP 4. Heat oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6. Combine beaten egg with chopped thyme and Brush pie to glaze (making sure the steam hole hasn’t sealed up). Cook for 20-25 mins, until golden and hot through.

Batch it up!

To save money, batch cooking is the way forward – it’s essentially why we can make recipes cheaper than you can at home.

With a bit of forethought, the right kit, space in the freezer and a few hours set aside, you can batch cook yourself by scaling up the quantities above.

A few tips:

• Clean COOK trays can be really useful. Make your portion, freeze in the tray, then, once frozen, pop out and wrap in cling film to store (or, if you have lots of trays, just store in the tray).
• To reheat from frozen, pop the frozen block into one of our ceramic dishes and cook at about 170C until piping hot.

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