This is the first of My Mystery Bag Meals series, a series based on Ready Steady Cook. You can see all the ingredients below, including the ones I used from my Store Cupboard
This mystery bag was set by Melanie from (www. melaniesfoodadventures.com) The ingredients were:
- Ready Rolled Puff Pastry £1.30
- Ready to Eat Chicken Chunks £2.00
- Pack of Trimmed Green Beans £0.50
- Tub of Crème Fraiche £0.90
This bag came to a total of £4.70… good shopping I thought, so what was I going to do with this bag of loveliness…. a Chicken Stroganoff Pie
It’s quite funny posting this today because a year ago today I posted “Graham’s Caramelised Red Onion and Goats Cheese Tart”. This recipe is loosely based on a recipe Graham gave me for his Stroganoff, and it was cooked by my niece Alice and I when she came to stay recently. The first thing to do is pre-heat your oven to 2000 C, next chop the onion and garlic, as you’re cooking it in the saucepan and in the oven you don’t have to chop them too finely…. ok you can cute them as fine as you want to, with me time was tight and I was lazy.
Once you’ve chopped the garlic and onion set them aside for later, next put some butter in a sauce pan and some olive oil. Heat on a low to medium heat…. I hate these recipes that say cook something for x amount of minutes without telling you what temperature to cook it on.
When the butter has melted add the onions and Sweat the onions slowly then add the garlic, you should be careful not to burn the garlic. Cook it gently stirring regularly.
Once the garlic and onions have softened it’s time to add the Smoked Paprika. As I said earlier this is an adaptation of Graham’s Strongonhoff recipe, he uses Paprika that isn’t smoked but I only had Smoked Paprika in the cupboard. Alice and I (well Alice not me honestly your honour was a bit heavy handed with ye ole Paprika… on reflection I’d add about 1 level teaspoon. Cook gently so that you cook out the powderiness of the spice. I can never understand how people put raw curry powder with mayonnaise for dips and dressing, raw spices have a sand like texture, reminds me of falling when messing about on the beach – or so I imagine lol.
Once the Paprika, Onion and Garlic have got to know each other, are relaxed and enjoying each other’s company….. add another guest to the party. It’s time to add the star of the show… the cooked chicken, I have a confession to make, there’s less cooked chicken than there should be, why, because I was hungry the night before lol
Keep stirring that until the chicken is fully covered with the Paprika and all the flavours are combined and everything is cosy, the chicken is pre-cooked so don’t worry too much just bring things up to temperature. At every party there’s always someone who is fashionably late… this occasion it’s the Crème Fraiche, it’s an ingredient I don’t use often, although to draw more links to this time last year I do use it in Graham’s Goats Cheese Tart and my Courgette, Saffron and Two Cheese Tart.
Make sure everything has amalgamated and all the flavours are combined, taste, taste and taste again. I really can’t stress how important tasting your food is, no one knows how it should taste better than you. Season at this point and stir again, everything should be red and lushness looking, I love red, being a Manchester United fan it’s hard not to lol.
Roll the pastry out, sprinkle some flour. Score a boarder around the edge of the pastry, then prick the middle area to ensure it doesn’t rise. Leave to one side to top the pie. While the pie crust is sitting relaxing place the filling ingredients in the pie tin.
Place the pastry on top of the pie tin, ensure that it goes fully around the tin you are using. In my opinion it shouldn’t touch the filling, once on the tin crimp the edges and slash some slits in it, then brush with an egg to get the pastry golden brown.
Place in the oven and cook until the pastry is golden brown, all pie filling ingredients are cooked all ready so it is just a case of cooking the pastry lid until it’s golden brown.
Can you spot the guest appearance in the picture above…. there’s a gold star in it if you can! It was stunning, my mother said to me she’d never had a Chicken Stroganoff Pie, neither had I but then I’d never heard of a Chicken Tikka Slice until I bought one from Gregg’s…. there’s a first time for everything!
This was stunning, Alice and I thoroughly enjoyed it, had a rich deep taste which was smoky from the Paprika, I thoroughly enjoyed it, if I’d had more time I’d have done more with the beans…. but as it was they were just boiled lol. To download a step-by-step guide for this recipe click here.
I’ve had a nightmare few weeks, just lacking motivation, I’m sorry it’s taken so long for me to write this, because I couldn’t be arsed to do anything…. excuse the vulgarity. I’m feeling better now thankfully and working on my new business so things are looking up… woop woop!
Anyway enough of the boohoo’s time to move on, this recipe was made by myself and Alice, who (unlucky France) has come back home after her time away. We had a fab week when she came up recently and did lots of cooking including a Pasta Dissaster as I’ve said before, I’ll share that with you soon! I’ll be doing another Mystery Bag Meals challenge in at the end of September, do you want to be the one who suggests the bag. Email mbm@wheeliegoodmeals.co.uk. Cook this one, it’s a great recipe and quick and easy. Thanks to Alice for helping me cook it, Melanie for the ingredient suggestions and Dave Hole for creating the fab logo. The bag types and costs are listed below, don’t panic I’ll be the one forking out for the ingredients lol… you’ve just got to give me the list 😀
If you like Stroganoff then check out my Mushroom Stroganoff I made many moons ago lol. Thank you for stopping by remember you can sign up to the blog for updates and visit us on our social media pages which are listed below.
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I know I’ve been potching (messing about) with the layout of the site, I’m still looking for a new one but I’ll be going back to the old look for now. Bear with me, I’ll get there! See you Tuesday, I’ll be back as normal…. is that a good thing, I’ll let you decide lol
Rich
