Cooking with Jonny69: chicken and pea slice (like a Ginsters slice)

[Jonny69]

I had a Marks and Spencer dine two for £10 last week. It was a chicken and ham puff pastry slice with a cheesy sauce, but I was slightly disappointed with it and decided to make a better one myself. I went for chicken breast with peas in a cheese sauce, wrapped in puff pastry.

Ingredients:
Ready rolled puff pastry
1 chicken breast minus the fillet and trimmed to size
1 large knob of butter
1 tablespoon of plain flour
About 200ml of milk
Handful of grated mature cheddar
Handful of frozen peas

I started off with some ready-rolled puff pastry to save time and effort. It comes about 10" wide so you can make a 5" square puff and you can get three of them out of one roll of pastry. Cut the pastry into the three pieces and trim the chicken breast to fit. It doesn't want to be too thick or you won't get the pastry to fold over, hence taking off the fillet.

Make a white sauce by melting the butter, adding the flour to make a roux and beating in the milk. Add the grated cheese and stir in. Then switch off the heat and stir in the frozen peas. This will make the sauce suddenly go cold and very thick, which is exactly what you want because hot sauce and raw puff pastry doesn't mix.

Place the chicken breast on the pastry and a dollop of the sauce on top:

Fold it over, crimp the sides with a fork and egg-wash it:

Stick it in a preheated oven at 200 degrees for about 30 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked and the pastry is golden brown. It should puff up nicely:

Tasty snack is now ready to omnomnom:

 

[Jonny69]

^^^ I don't like mushrooms though

 

[Jonny69]

Same family as athletes foot and thrush, but with the texture of slugs and a gross taste and smell. What is there to like?

 

[Jonny69]

Any leftovers, wrap in puff and stick in freezer. Curry and chilli would work well

Yes, I put the spare one in the freezer, unbaked. I've done them with leftover roast dinner and beef stew and both work well

ew, blood on the chicken

I cut it off a chicken. What were you expecting?

Birds come with feathers and guts sometimes too, and a head

 

[Jonny69]

Can you freeze these before cooking, i.e. raw pastry and then cook from frozen?

If freezing would it be best to precook the filling to avoid under cooked meat?

You can freeze it all raw and cook from frozen. Drop the temperature down to 180 and leave it in for longer!

 

[Jonny69]

You could always make a tomato-based sauce with garlic, onion and peppers which will cut the fat content right down. That would actually be a pretty healthy and filling snack especially if you went heavy on the vegetables.