Recipes

Roast Chicken and Wild Mushroom Pie

May, 2010 | No Comments

preparation time 2½hrs

Bought pies are often nothing more than lumpy sauce and soggy pastry with very little meat – you feel fortunate if you get a piece of gristle stuck in your teeth! But there’ll be no need for toothpicks when you make my roast chicken and wild mushroom pie.

Once you’ve made the effort to get hold of free-range chickens and other organic ingredients, the rest really is easy as pie.

Foraging for themselves

All livestock, including chickens, should be allowed to live natural stress-free lives – to be able to roam around freely, scratch in the grit, roll in the mud and forage for much of their food. They should never spend their days cramped up in tiny kraals, sties or pens or be force-fed, whether they’re being reared for the pot or not. We have to rely on reputable retailers to check up on living conditions and to market accordingly, but there are a few things that you should look for on the label. In addition to free-range, the product must be antibiotic and hormone-free and must not have been fed fishmeal or any animal by-product.

An added bonus with free-range chickens is that their eggs are much higher in the good omega 3 oil and they just look and taste so much better.

Foraging for yourself

OK, you have found the chicken, but before you roll up your sleeves and start baking, you need to take your partner for a little stroll in the forest to show off just how free-range you are. Although the wild mushroom is not exactly an aphrodisiac, it tends to make women more tender and men more likeable . . . reason enough to set off early before the hordes arrive.

Mushrooms are easiest to find on one of those drizzly, crisp winter mornings when you can smell the leaves and the mulchy soil. It’s a case of the early bird getting the worm and don’t forget to cut off the mushrooms just above the base so that another will grow in its place.

Porcini mushrooms (Boletus edulis, Cep) to me are the Rolls-Royce of edible agarics. They have such an incredible flavour and once you know what you’re looking for, they’re easy to identify. But if you’re as unlucky at finding wild mushrooms as I am at fishing, you’ll find that good specialist food stores stock the dried product.

Or you could grow your own . . .

The easiest way to do this is to let someone else do the basics and buy a mushroom growing kit. These are made from mushroom-friendly substrates like logs (especially good for growing shiitakes), straw or wood chips into which they have injected ‘spawn’ that spreads and turns into mushrooms. You soak the kit in water and then keep it in a cool, moist place and literally watch your mushrooms grow.

Once it’s up and running you’ll be able to harvest a decent crop, and you can keep it going for years if you store it in the right conditions. Something like a plastic aquarium will do, or even wrap it up in a plastic bag – just make sure it stays cool and moist.

If you’re lucky enough to land up with more than you can eat, dry the surplus.

Build a Drying Unit

Slice the mushrooms into about 5 mm thick medallions. Place on the drying racks in a single layer. Turn on the light bulb. More heat is generated at the lower levels, so every few hours swap the drying racks around. Repeat until the mushrooms are completely dehydrated, it should take about 24 hours – experimentation and practice make perfect!

You can also use your drying unit for other products, including thinly sliced apples, peaches, chillies and tomatoes. In fact, it’s a great way to ensure that none of the bounty from your veggie patch goes to waste and that your pantry stays stocked throughout the year.

Warning!

Mushrooms . . . can be poisonous

If you’ve never been mushroom picking before, you need to know that the rule is never to touch wild toadstools or mushrooms unless an expert has checked them out and given you the green light. One mistake can lead to symptoms of sweating, cramps, diarrhoea, convulsions and liver damage and about 60 per cent of mistakes are fatal.

. . . can lead to confusion

You could land up having ‘a-religious-experience-in-a-fungus’. The primary ingredient that causes this is psilocybin and a shroom trip can mean five hours of intense psychedelic colours and fluorescent light. At high doses all connection with reality is lost – monsters crawl out of the woodwork and mundane actions become hilarious. While tripping one should not handle anything more technically challenging than a plastic teaspoon.

. . . can save the world

Oyster mushrooms are becoming our great white knights, the grand recyclers of our planet and the trendsetters in habitat restoration. Industry is already using these pearls to convert polluted soil to a less contaminated state and some claim that they’re capable of assisting in cleaning up toxic spills, halting poison-gas attacks and curing deadly diseases, and who knows what else . . .

Now let’s get back to that pie . . .

This recipe feeds 10 – 12

Roasting the chickens

2 free-range organic chickens  olive oil 2 teaspoons of Maldon sea salt crushed black pepper to taste  a couple of sprigs of fresh thyme  Rinse the chickens under cold water and gently pat dry. Rub them all over with olive oil, salt, pepper and thyme (including the inside of the bird). Place both birds in your baking dish and roast at 180°C for 1 to 1½ hours until the chicken is tender and the juices run clear when it is poked with a skewer. If the juice is pink, the chicken needs to cook for a while longer.    Once the chicken is cooked, let it cool down, then debone it, breaking up all the meat into small pieces. If you’re watching your weight, feed the skin to your dogs. If not, chop it up finely and add to the chicken pieces for extra flavour. Chuck all the bones and leftover bits into your compost bin or boil up for stock (see page x).  Rehydrate dried mushrooms If you are using dried mushrooms, soak them in hot water. Do this at the same time as you put the chickens in the oven because the mushrooms need a good hour to rehydrate properly. Drain off excess liquid afterwards.   Other ingredients for the pie 2-3 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped

1 onion, peeled and sliced
2 chillies, roughly chopped
small knob of butter 300 g
dried or 500 g fresh Porcini mushrooms, cut into 5 mm slices
2 whole onions, peeled 1 free-range egg

And for the roux
60 g butter
4 level tablespoons cornflour 600 ml milk black pepper and salt to taste

And also 1 packet ready-made puff pastry, defrosted but still cool  Pan fry the garlic, sliced onion and chillies in a small knob of butter until the onion turn translucent. Add the mushrooms and pan fry on low heat until there is no excess juice left, this takes a couple of minutes.  Make the roux

This is the fancy word for a white sauce made from thickened flour and butter combined with milk or stock. Melt butter in a pan, then remove the pan from the heat and stir in the cornflour – it will start to thicken almost immediately. Continue stirring for 1 to 2 minutes and then start adding the milk little by little. Using a whisk, mix it into the butter and flour mixture until you have a smooth roux. Once you’ve added all the milk, flavour with salt and pepper and a sprig or two of thyme. Return the pan to the heat and simmer very gently for 10 minutes, stirring continuously. If the sauce goes lumpy (which it might on your first bash), strain it through a fine sieve or use a blender.  When the sauce is ready, add the mushrooms and stir. Then pour over your chicken pieces and mix well.  The ideal size for your pie dish is 25 cm long x 17 cm wide x 5 cm deep. Wet the edge of your dish with a damp cloth then cut thin strips of pastry and line the outside edge with these to give the pie a nice double crust. Spoon the mixture into the pie dish. Place the 2 whole onions on top of the chicken mixture – this will prevent the pastry from collapsing. Place the rest of the sheet of pastry over the dish. Press the edges down firmly and then trim off the excess. Using the back of a fork press down the edge of your pie. Lastly, whisk the egg and give the pie an all-over layer of egg-wash using a basting brush. Bake at 220°C for 25 minutes until the pie is crispy and golden.

I serve the pie hot with a green salad made from whatever seasonal greens are available. I always try to include avocado and slices of granny smith apple. A salad dressing is not needed but a squeeze of lemon juice over the apple and avo will complement the flavours and also keep them from turning brown.

By the way, a basic roux can be turned into any number of different sauces just by the addition of a key ingredient. For a pepper sauce, crush up some Madagascan peppercorns and add once the sauce is prepared. Other suggestions include various cheeses, leeks or spring onion, fresh herbs or cayenne pepper. I’m sure you can think of lots more – so go bedondered!