Year-end holidays, Christmas, and New Year are crazy busy times when you're running a BnB, so I've been stocking the freezer with easy meals.
Online shopping saves much time and frustration and stops impulse buying - chocolates, chips, candy, and all kinds of temptations!
Store Apps differ though, so I made a big mistake when shopping at a different store, and ended up with four tubs of fresh cream, two of which turned sour!
No problem, I've always wanted to make sour cream pastry, so I did a little research to check the ratio of sour cream and butter to flour. I adapted my super flaky pastry recipe to incorporate sour cream, but the results were a buttery, short pastry. It tastes great, but I still prefer my flaky pastry.
Individual Chicken and Mushroom hand-pies would be super handy to have in the freezer, and I could give a couple away as gifts.
I would welcome a basket filled with homemade goods, and I know many of my friends feel the same. We're all so busy, being busy, this time of the year! A bag of cookies, a bottle of preserves, jam, marmalade, Kimchi, Lemon Curd, creamy Fudge, homemade Lemonade cordial, and so forth.
Let's get baking!
First to tackle is the filling, as it has to cool down completely
Ingredients
Chicken & Mushroom Pie filling
- 1 bunch Spring Onions, diced
- 1 clove Garlic, crushed
- 1 punnet Button Mushrooms
- 8 chicken fillets, cubed
- Fresh Rosemary
- Juice and rind of half a Lemon
- 1 small bunch Parsley
- 2 Potatoes, cubed
- 150ml Sour Cream
- Paprika and Cayenne Pepper to taste
- Approx 30ml Cornflour to thicken the filling sauce
Sautee spring onions (reserve a little for later) and garlic in a little oil, move to side of pan
Add chicken cubes and rosemary, and flash-fry till the outside is no longer pink
Remove from pan, squeeze lemon juice over, and grate lemon zest on top
Sautee mushrooms in a little oil, add spring onions and parsley, remove from pan
Heat a little oil in a pan and shallow-fry potato cubes till they start to brown
Cover with water, add salt, and cook till potatoes are done
Place all filling ingredients back in pan, add sour cream and a little milk to cover filling, and season to taste, thicken with cornflour
Place in large pan and leave to get cold
This is now becoming a marathon bake, but hey, my mother used to make pies all the time, no getting cold feet now!
The filling was so delicious that I almost gave up! I contemplated cooking up some pasta and making a couple of smaller pasta dishes for the freezer, but the business of the day was baking pies!
Sour Cream Pastry
This quantity yielded 14 hand-pies.
- 500 grams ice-cold Butter or baking Margarine, cut into cubes
- 1250ml Cake Flour
- 5ml Salt
- 175ml Sour Cream
- 1 Egg yolk
Sift flour and salt in a mixing bowl
Gradually add butter, 'cutting' into flour with a knife
Mix in food mixer using kneading hooks, or knead by hand
Beat egg yolk into cream, add to flour mixture, and knead well till dough becomes smooth
Flatten slightly, cut into four sections, and leave to cool in refrigerator.
Press the pastry with fingertips into the sprayed pie pans
Roll the balance of pastry out on a floured board, and cut circles for the pie lid
Place the filling inside.
Brush the base of the pastry lid with an egg wash (beaten egg yolk and a little milk) to seal the edges, place on top of the filling, seal the edges with a fork, make a few holes on top with a fork, and brush with egg wash
Bake at 180°C for approx 40 min till pastry is a light golden brown
Cool on wire racks before packaging
Pack on a pretty plate to be given as a gift, and cover with netting or cellophane
Make up a gift basket with homemade goods.
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