Michael and Rachel's

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Ham, Leek, and Potato Pie with Flaky Pastry

Updated: 31 Dec 2015

Ingredients

  • 150g salted butter, wrapped in foil and frozen completely
  • 225g plain flour plus extra to dust
  • 2 tbsp chilled water, plus extra

  • 1 free range egg, beaten, to glaze

  • 400g waxy potatoes (such as charlotte) chopped into small chunks

  • 60g unsalted butter
  • 3 leeks, sliced into rings
  • Pinch nutmeg
  • 60g plain flour
  • 1 tbsp wholegrain mustard
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 350ml fresh chicken stock
  • 50ml double cream

  • 300g cooked ham or leftover gammon, shredded

  • Fresh veg e.g. baby sweetcorn / courgettes

Method

  1. Start by making the pastry. Grate the butter straight from the freezer. Sift over the flour and sprinkle over the water; mix with a spatula to a rough dough. Add enough water to bring it together, then tip out onto a lightly floured work surface and shape it into a disc. Wrap in cling film, then chill.
  2. To make the filling, put the potatoes into a pan of boiling water and cook for around 5 minutes or until nearly but not quite done. Drain and leave to steam dry.
  3. Melt the butter in a large saute pan, then add the leeks and cook, stirring, for about 5 minutes until softened but not coloured.
  4. Stir in the mace and flour until the leeks are evenly coated, then cook, stirring often, for 2-3 minutes until the flour starts to smell biscuitty.
  5. Stir in the mustard and add the bay leaves.
  6. Gradually, over a medium heat and stirring all the time, add the chicken stock. It will thicken as it cooks. It should be thick enough to thickly coat the back of a spoon. If it gets too thin, stop adding stock and let it bubble and thicken for a moment before adding more stock.
  7. Once all the stock has been added stir through the cream and bubble for a minute or so then add the potatoes and ham. Taste to check the seasoning; add some pepper.
  8. Transfer to a 1.5 litre ovenproof pie dish (the round red one worked well). The pie can be left in the fridge at this point.
  9. Heat the oven to 200C. Remove the pastry from the fridge and roll out to about 0.5cm thick. Brush the rim of the pie dish with water; drape the pastry around the rolling pin and unroll it over the pie dish. Trim off the excess pastry and decorate the top as desired. Seal / crimp the pastry around the edge of the dish and cut a steam hole. Brush with beaten egg.
  10. Optional: if the pie filling was chilled at stage 8, pop the pie in the freezer for five minutes to harden the pastry. If the filling was hot then just skip this stage.
  11. Bake the pie for 30-35 minutes until the pastry is golden and the centre is piping hot. Serve with steamed greens / vegetables.

Serves 2 for dinner (generously) with 1 dinner portion leftover.