Cooking Joe Wicks’ Chicken Pie

With autumn settling in and London evenings becoming cooler, I tend to cook heartier and more comforting meals.  Yet, I am also always on the look out for healthy filling meals. So when I came across a chicken pie recipe from Lean in 15 book by Joe Wicks (aka the Body Coach who I have been following for a couple of years now), I had to try it out.  Let me walk you through the process to show how easy it is to make this very tasty chicken pie.

INGREDIENTS

• 2 large knobs of butter ( I used 1 tsp of coconut oil to make it healthier)
• 1 pack of mushrooms (about 200g), quartered
• 1 large leek (I didn’t have one so used a bunch of green onions instead)
• 2 chicken breast fillets, cut into cubes
• 250ml chicken (or vegetable) stock
• 100-150 double cream (I used single cream instead)
• 1 tbsp cornflour
• 2 large handfuls of spinach (I used 3-4)
• 6 sheets of filo pastry (I used 2-3 sheets)

METHOD

Preheat your oven to 190-200°C. In the meantime, in a large pan melt coconut oil and fry leek (or green onions) and mushrooms until soft. Add chicken and cook for a couple of minutes, then add vegetable stock and simmer. In a small bowl, mix cornflour with dash of water creating a smooth paste and add to pan, pour in cream and mix everything well. Bring to boil, while stirring gently, and cook until the sauce thickens.

Turn off the heat and stir in spinach until it’s completely wilted.

Next transfer filling into the deep baking dish (I used round Pirex dish) and set aside to cool off.

Now onto the fun part: take each filo sheet and before putting it on the top of the chicken pie, crumple in your hands. Repeat with remaining filo sheets and drizzle the pastry with olive oil.

Put pie in the oven and bake it for about 10-15 minutes until filo crust turns crisp and golden brown.

Voila! Tasty and healthy dinner ready within short time. I hope you and your family enjoy this chicken pie as much as we did. Thanks, Joe, for a gastronomic inspiration.