Iberian pie

Leftovers used to drive me crazy, I would always look towards the bin first, then a guilty conscious would  kick in, and they ended up in the fridge constantly being in my way, before I gave it one OH well, and reached for the bin. It almost became a ritual, until a while ago, I'd had enough and decided to put an end to it and give my best to find a way to use the leftovers.  Pies, one pot dishes and casseroles are great for that, as long as you don't throw things completely randomly into your pan ( sometimes even that works).

 Over time I became pretty good  at it and built a small Clear the fridge cooking collection  and this recipe is one of them. Strictly speaking, it belongs to the great Spanish nation, it was brought to my attention by Eric Lanlard, but for me it's a work in progress, and simply a variation of home made Iberian meat pie. 

Whether you use chicken, turkey or pork, even beef, is fine as long as you put a slice or two of chorizo or any similar type of cooking sausage with paprika. I had roast turkey leftovers and some chicken from the soup I made the day before. You can always use fresh diced meat, chicken and turkey work best.

Iberian pie
For the shortcrust pastry:
250 g flour
100 g unsalted butter, chopped
50 g lard, chopped
1tsp salt
1 egg
drop of milk
egg for brushing

Rub the butter and lard with flour and salt until the mixture resembles fine crumbs, add beaten egg and a tablespoon of milk - make smooth dough and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

For the filling:

1-2 tbsp olive oil
400 g chicken or turkey cut into bite size pieces.
1 garlic slove
100 g chorizo sausage, chopped
1/2 - 1 can of tomato, or glass of passata
handful of chopped parsley

Saute the chorizo until it starts to release its oils, add the finely chopped garlic, then the meat. Cook over low heat for few minutes and pour the tomato over. Bring to boil, reduce the heat and let simmer for 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, add parsley at the end. Set aside to cool down. 

Now, you can spoon it into a large oven-proof dish ( about 30x20x5cm), roll out the pastry, brush the rim of the dish with some beaten egg and cover the pie with the pastry. Press the pastry edges against the rim of the dish to seal and trim off any excess, which you can use to make the decoration . Brash the pastry all over with the beaten egg.

Or, you can make smaller individual portions - which I did time. Also I made double crust pies.  After laying the bottom of the dishes I put them in a freezer for 20 minutes, pricked the bottom with fork, then  spooned the filling in which I added a bit of the cornflour to thicken it up a bit. The top half of the pastry and the decoration I kept in the fridge When the oven is heated, spoon the filling,cover with pastry round, put the decoration  if using, brush with the egg glaze and bake for 25 minutes in oven preheated to 170C/350F/gas4 You probably noticed that I didn't press the pastry against the rim - it held the shape, because it was baked from frozen.