Chicken Leek and Taragon Pie

I occasionally get a chicken from the Ark Chicken company at the farmers market, delicious but expensive enough that it's a rare thing. They do often have boiling hens though, ex layers which I imagine without being sold through these guys wouldn't otherwise be sold to the public. This isn't a chicken you can get at any supermarket or even butchers that I'm aware of, they won't be meat breeds so may not be super delicious on their own although they've no doubt had a pretty good lifestyle so should have some of that genuine free range flavour. They are good for a number of recipes which would I think be something of a waste of a prime roasting hen, coq au vin is the one recommended on the label, which as the name suggests is intended for a scraggly old farmyard cockerel once it's cookle-coo is too weak to rouse the family any more. I'm doing a chicken pie this time, sort of making it up as I go along guided by a few recipes out there.

This is the scrawny lady I'll be cooking with, looks pretty enticing to me.

I roughly jointed the chicken keeping everything on the bone, I also kept both breasts together since they were pretty diminutive, and packed the whole thing into a pan with 1 1/2 onions, 2 carrots and 3 bay leaves and water to cover. Ie a stock, ingredients, preferences and results may vary, for example if I remember next time I'll briefly roast the joints I think or elsewise brown the meat beforehand to get some extra depth to the flavour of the stock. I very lightly simmered this for about 4 to 5 hours, until the meat was tender. Then I took it out to cool a little and strained the remaining stock to keep it simmering whilst I did everything else.

After letting the meat cool a little, pulling all I could from the bone and roughly tearing it I lightly fried 2 leeks and 3 crushed garlic cloves in a little butter and oil and added some black pepper. Whilst that was frying I melted 25g butter over a low heat and added a tbsp of plain flour heaped as high as it'd go, I cooked this until it stopped smelling like uncooked flour. I added in about 250ml of the chicken stock and once that was combined added about 4 tbsp of single cream and probably 1 1/2 tsp dried taragon. For the last 5 mins of this I'd had the chicken in with the leeks which had all gone soft, after a little more cooking I poured the thick source onto the leeks and onions then poured the leeks and onions into the pie dish. Topped with puff pastry it was ready to bake, about 30 mins at 220C. Not a pie I know, but 'Chicken Leek and Targon lidded casserole' didn't quite work as well. Here it is in all it's valentines night finery:

 

 

A few things I'd change next time. Firstly I didn't salt the filling at all, I tasted the sauce on it's own but not mixed with the chicken and leeks, not to worry, I lifted the lid and sprinkled some salt under but would hope to correct this next time. Secondly, although it was nom I think it could have dome with something else, either an additional ingredient in the pie (mushrooms seem popular), more tarragon or perhaps a more heavily reduced chicken stock for a more chickeny hit. Not sure which of those but I'll try something different next time.