Indian chicken pies

4 servings

Ingredients

Quantity Ingredient
2 tablespoons Butter
2 ounces Button mushrooms, chopped
1 Onion, chopped
2 teaspoons Garam Masala
3¼ cup All-purpose flour
⅔ cup Chicken stock
8 ounces Cooked chicken, diced
⅓ cup Frozen corn, thawed
Salt to taste
Fresh ground pepper to taste
¼ teaspoon Salt
⅓ cup Cold margarine, diced
⅓ cup Lard, diced
¼ cup Cold water
1 Egg, beaten
Tomato slices, halved (opt)
Fresh parsley sprigs (opt)

Directions

Melt butter in a saucepan. Add mushrooms, onion and Garam Masala and cook 2 minutes.

Stir in ¼ cup of flour and cook 1 minute, then stir in stock and bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Reduce heat and cook 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and stir in chicken, corn, salt and pepper; cool.

Sift remaining flour into a bowl. Add ¼ teaspoon salt and cut in margarine and lard finely until mixture resembles bread crumbs. Add cold water and mix to form a fairly firm dough. Knead gently until smooth.

Preheat oven to 375'F. (175'C.). Preheat a baking sheet. Cut off ⅔ of pastry and cut in 4 equal pieces. Roll each piece to a 7" circle.

Line 4 (5") fluted pie pans with removable bottoms with pastry circles, allowing pastry to overlap top edges slightly. Press pastry well into flutes but do not trim top edge. Cut remaining ⅓ of pastry in 4 equal pieces and roll each piece to a 6" circle.

Spoon cold chicken mixture into pastry-lined flan pans and smooth surfaces. Dampen edges of pastry in pans and cover with pastry circles. Seal edges well and trim by pressing pastry edges firmly flat blade of a knife. Make a small hole in center of each pie.

Reroll pastry trimmings and cut out leaves to decorate pies. Brush surfaces of pies with egg, then decorate with leaves and brush leaves with egg.

Place flan pans on preheat baking sheet and bake in preheated oven 40-45 minutes or until pastry is golden brown and filling is heated through. Cool before carefully removing from pans. Garnish with tomato slices and parsley sprigs, if desired, and serve cold.

VARIATION: Substitute Curry Powder for Garam Masala or try a mixture of each.

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