Fast and Easy Chicken Pies (Donna Hay)

I always remember my son's first day at school at the beginning of this year. My little boy was carrying a big bag, waddling his way into the classroom. Funny that I was actually more nervous than him... I was wondering if he can cope in classes, new friends and schedules. Worrying too if he likes his packed lunch. What can I say??? I'm a typical mum.

Since the beginning of school, we are having lesser time cooking and baking together... Now, I'm a sad mum - frown! Despite that, my boy and I are still brainstorming and searching for recipes together and this is one of the best recipes that we like.

My 5 year old is totally amazed that he can bake these classic chicken pies! I'm proud of him for doing such a great job too. All thanks to this brilliant Donna Hay recipe from the show and book, Fast, Fresh, Simple!

Like the name of Donna Hay's show, this chicken pie recipe is indeed fast, fresh and simple to bake. And of course, in order to bake them fast enough, we need to take short cuts! And, the two obvious short-cut ingredients are shredded roasted chicken and store-bought puff pastry. All we need to do is to assemble all with herbs and seasonings... Voilà! Here, we have our classic chicken pies! Amazingly, they look very professional made! - LOL!

Comparing to the country chicken and mushroom pies that I baked recently, these pies are so much easier to bake. For the benefits of all busy mums and wanna-to-bake kids, I like to showcase this superb recipe and bake-along these chicken pies once again with Joyce from Kitchen Flavours and Lena from Frozen wings.

My son's yummy lunch - Donna Hay's Chicken Pies

I always use the 25% reduced fat puff pastry and it works as good as the full-fat ones.

This is how we transform plain boring chicken to something...

... creamy and yummy!

We are making our lunch interesting with these shapes :)

This is how my son make these pies. Easy peasy, isn't it?

Apply egg wash and bake...

Freshly baked chicken pies - our tomorrow-lunch is ready!

Here's the recipe from LifeStyle Food by Donna Hay
(with my modification and notes in blue)

2 cups (320g) coarsely chopped cooked chicken
3/4 cup (180g) sour cream
(I used 200g fat reduced sour cream with 18% fat)
2 tbsp chopped basil leaves
(about 10g)
1 tsp finely grated lemon rind
2 tsp Dijon mustard
sea salt and cracked black pepper
4 x 200g sheets store-bought butter puff pastry, thawed
1 egg, lightly beaten

Preheat oven to 180°C or 160°C fan forced (350°F).

Combine the chicken, sour cream, basil, lemon rind, mustard, salt and pepper.

Cut 2 x 15cm x 10cm rectangles from the pastry and place on a baking tray lined with non-stick baking paper - Instead of measuring, we cut each pastry sheets into 4 squares.

Spoon the filling into the centre of the (2 square) pastry.

Brush just inside the edge of the pastry with the egg.

Cut 2 x 18cm x 12cm rectangles from the remaining pastry, cut a shape in the middle of each piece and place over the filling. Gently press the edges together to seal.- We used a fork to press to seal.

Brush the tops of the pies with the beaten egg. Bake the pies for 25–30 mins or until pastry is puffed and golden.

Note: Using the full amount of this recipe, we have baked 8 chicken pies at 160°C fan forced for 30 mins.

Happy Baking
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Please note that the linky tool for bake-along is no longer available.