Melt the butter and stir in the flour. Cook the mixture for 4 mins or till it starts to lightly froth up
tip… always use a whisk when making white sauce – it will cut down the effort needed to remove lumps enormously!
Remove from the heat and add about 1 cup of milk, stirring till smooth. Keep adding small amounts of milk and stirring after each till you have poured all the milk in. The consistency should be of thin cream (pouring cream), use more or less till you get to this consistency. Place back on the heat and bring to the boil while stirring continually. It should be quite thick now.
In a mid size fry pan add the leeks with a little oil and slowly cook till softened, about 4 mins.
Add the mushrooms and the silverbeet and cook for another 5 mins.
Add the chopped chicken, mustard, salt and pepper – taste and alter the seasonings to your liking to the mushroom mixture
Stir about half of the white sauce into the mushroom/chicken mixture. You can adjust the amount of white sauce to your liking – some would like quite a lot in their pies, with equal quantities of sauce and the meat and vegetables and some would use only a small amount just to bind it all together… your choice.
Defrost the pastry sheets
When your pastry sheets have defrosted, cut out the sizes you need and line your pie tins or muffin trays with the shortcrust pastry.
Blind baking…
Line each pastry case with some baking paper and sprinkle in a layer of dried beans or rice. Cook for 5 mins at 200°F. Remove from the oven and take out the bean or rice filling and the baking paper, place back in the oven and cook again for 7 min.
Now that your pastry bases are ready, fill them with the chicken mixture making sure to mound them up quite high.
Top the pies with the puff pastry cut to size, press the edges down and put a vent hole in the top.
Beat the egg and milk together and use this egg wash to brush over the top of the puff pastry.
Cook in the oven for 20 mins or till golden and puffy.
Recipe by Finding Feasts at https://www.findingfeasts.com.au/recipe-index/chicken-eggplant-mushroom-pie/