Phyllo - Philia

I found a packet of pastry lurking in the back of the freezer [I got it half price with a voucher a while back, and forgot it was there!]

So I took a loose-bottomed sandwich tin

And laid sheets of pastry over it, hanging down the sides. Then I took some left over roast chicken and cooked new potatoes, and combined them with peas, a lightly fried chopped onion, diced carrots, half a jug of gravy and half a jar of IKEA mustard cream sauce. I heated that through very thoroughly, spooned it into the tin, and flapped the pastry over the top. I screwed up the remaining scraps of pastry and brushed it all with melted butter. Then I baked it in the oven.

I declared it to be “All-In-One Chicken Pie” and we had half of it [hot] for our evening meal. Then we had the remainder [cold] for supper.

For a meal made almost entirely of leftovers, it tasted surprisingly good [and even better cold!]

Accordingly to Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall, the average Brit eats 550 chickens in a lifetime [plus a smaller number of cows, sheep and pigs] That seemed an awful lot to me – I think that our family doesn’t eat that much meat – but what we do eat is certainly stretched to its limit.

I do love pastry – in all its forms – phyllo, puff, shortcrust, flaky, suet crust, choux…it’s just a shame it is loaded with calories!