Christmas Leftover Turkey Pie

Christmas lunch is easily the most looked forward to meal of the year in our house. A morning spent preparing and cooking, and an afternoon of feasting and drinking (hope you bought your stretchy pants). This year due to Covid, Christmas Day was a food affair between just Mum and I, and while it was a much smaller Christmas than usual, we certainly did not downsize our spread. The one consequence of this however, was a lot more leftovers than we were anticipating; as we are not ones to waste, we turned to Uncle Jamie to see what he does with his leftover turkey.

This recipe is originally from the Jamie Oliver Christmas book, which you can find here: https://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/turkey-recipes/turkey-and-sweet-leek-pie/ I have modified this to include more leftovers that we had from our Christmas celebrations in our fridge, and made my own rough puff pastry (recipe below).

You could easily replace the turkey in this pie for leftover chicken during the rest of the year, which I will definitely be doing because I am now obsessed with this recipe. The only extra ingredient I needed to purchase was the leeks, the rest are pantry staples and leftovers from the festive period.

For the Pastry:

Ingredients:

• 250g Plain Flour

• 250g Butter, Chilled and Grated

• 50ml Cold Water

• Pinch of Salt

Let's Make This Pastry:

1. In a mixing bowl, rub together flour and butter until the mixture resembles damp sand. Add the salt and the water, and use your hands to bring the ingredients together to form a stiff dough. You may need to add more water, but do so sparingly as the dough should not be wet.

2. Shape dough into a disc and cover in cling film. Refrigerate for minimum 30 minutes.

3. Remove dough from the fridge and place on a lightly floured surface.

4. Roll out the dough in a rectangular shape, and fold into thirds. Turn the dough 90 degrees and roll out again. Repeat this process a few times and on the last fold, wrap in cling film again and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

5. Once chilled, roll the dough out around 1cm thick and blind bake in a standard pie dish with baking beads for 15 minutes before filling.

For the Pie Filling:

Ingredients:

• 500g - 1kg Leftover Turkey Meat (dark and white meat is fine)

• 2 Leeks, Washed and Sliced

• 6-8 Swiss Brown Mushrooms, Sliced

• 4 Rounds of Bacon, Chopped

• 2L Chicken Stock

• 1 Tbs Plain Flour

• 2 Cloves Garlic, Minced

• 1 Spring Rosemary, left whole so it can be removed after cooking

• 1/4 Cup Thickened Cream

• 1 Tbs Rice Bran Oil

• 1 Egg, Beaten

• Salt and Pepper, to taste

Let's Make This Pie:

1. In a large pot, heat oil and add garlic and the sprig of rosemary, and lightly fry until fragrant.

2. Add bacon, leeks, and mushrooms, and sauté until leeks are soft and translucent. Add the turkey and mix well.

3. Add the cream, flour, and stock, and stir. Allow mixture to simmer on the stove for around 30 minutes, or until sauce has thickened. Season to taste. At this stage, pre heat oven to 180 degree Celsius.

4. Once thickened, allow the mixture to cool before spooning in to blind baked pastry case. Add the pastry lid and brush with beaten egg wash.

5. Bake in oven for 20 minutes or until pastry is golden and flaky.