Curry Chicken Pie

Ingredients

1 whole chicken (1.5 kg or there abouts)
2 onions, 1 finely chopped, 1 quartered
2 thick slices of ginger
1 carrot, quartered
2 crushed garlic cloves
1 small bunch of parsley/coriander, depending on your taste, (leaves picked and chopped, stalks kept whole)
2 tablespoons of a mild curry paste, tikka is ideal. if unable to get tikka or korma, you can use curry powder instead, but less. definitley less.
a half a teaspoon of ground turmeric
1 cube chicken stock
150 ml of double cream, though you can use coconut cream, I did and it was awesome.
50 g butter
50 g flour
2 tablespoons olive oil

Notes:
this recipe assumes that you have a stock pot big enough to just dump an entire chicken in. if you don't, you'll want to clean your chicken first and put the meat into the pot without the bones. though if you don't have a stock pot like that, consider getting one. it's the best thing you'll ever own.

Method

1. put your chicken, garlic, ginger, 1 quartered onion, carrot and parsley stalks into your stock pot and cover completely with water. Bring the pot to a boil and turn down the heat to a gentle cook. Cover and cook for 1 hour, turning the chicken over half way through. You may need to top up your water at that point.

2. check that your meat is tender by trying to pull a leg away from the body of the chhicken with some tongs. if there's a lot of resistance keep cooking for 10 minutes until you judge the meat to be tender, then remove your chicken and place it on a plate to cool.


3. strain your stock of all the little bits and discard them or keep them to make soup later. keep your liquid. measure out 500 mls of the stock into a bowl and keep or discard the rest.

4. shred the meat and discard the bones and fat or keep along with your vegitable leftovers for soup.

5. melt your butter in the pan and add your oil and second onion, finely chopped. cook until onion is soft. Add your flour, curry paste and turmeric and stir, making sure your ingredients don't clump together and then crumble in your stock cube.

6. using a ladle, carefully spoon in your cooking liquid, stirring till smooth with each adition to the pan. do this till you've used up all the liquid and have a smooth sauce.

7. stir in your cream and add the rest of your chopped herbs and chicken and let it sit on a very low heat for about 20 minutes before removing to cool. it's worth noting at this point you actually have a perfectly acceptable curry stew you can just eat, and any left over after pie filling can be eaten. it's great stuff.

8. blah blah blah cool filling, you already know this drill by now. cut pastry, do the egg thing. oven 180 degrees, watch your pastry. why did I type this?

9. serve, eat, enjoy, but I'm pretty sure I don't need to tell you that bit except to be nice, and I am always nice!