Finally had the guts to make chicken pastel

Whew!...finally..well as what I have written down on my not so previous post, I had a very relaxing (not!!) weekend over at my parents' house. So for this Monday, I finally found the energy to make this long standing recipe of chicken pastel (woot! woot!**)

For this dish I used:

1/2 kilo of thigh fillets (chopped into bite size pcs)

2 small onions

3 cloves garlic

salt

pepper

about a tbsp of butter

2 pcs medium sized carrots chopped into bite size pcs

2 pcs medium sized potatoes chopped into bite size pcs

a can of mushrooms

milk

cream

flour

For the pastry

about 1/2 cup of flour

about 2 tbsps of shortenning

about 1/4 cup of water

Preheat over to 180 C

All things needed out of the fridge, openned, drained and chopped.

Heat your pan. Melt the butter. Add garlic and onions until former is browned a little and the latter transparent.

Add in your chicken fillets. Let cook through.

Add your mushrooms

Add the carrots and potatoes

Season with salt and pepper

You can add a chicken boullion cube to enhance flavor

Pour about a cup of water. Simmer for 20 minutes, covered.

When fillets are firm yet tender, add in your milk, cream and a little bit of flour to thicken the paste.

Simmer for a few more minutes then take out of the heat. Transfer into your ramekin.

For the pastry:

First combine the flour and your shortenning. After both ingredients are incorporated to resemble course crumbs, add your water a little bit at a time until your dough is formed. Roll it into a flat pastry enough to cover the lid (which in the picture was not enough..i should have rolled it further flat).

Smear the top with butter.

Pop into the oven for about 15-20 minutes or until the pastry has cooked through.

Serve piping hot.

Enjoy!

Peppered Chicken and Potatoes with Salty Lemon Butter Sauce

My first masterpiece. I wanted to do something this saturday other than my usual mommy duties. I noticed that I still had a kilo of chicken wings stocked in the freezer. My husband M asked what was for dinner (as what husbands usually ask their wives, although im pretty sure its not asked to annoy us, or make them sound like a broken record) and I automatically answered "Sinigang, may natira pa kase kagabi" ("Sinigang, there's some left overs from last night"). He answered "ok" and just when i was turning to look at him, I saw a tiny wee bit smirk from his face. Knowing that my husband would never impose requesting that I cook another dish for tonight (considering that we were both very tired from the day's work), I decided to make use of the chicken wings. We can always eat the left over Sinigang tomorrow lunch.

So I set about preparing the chicken. Firstly, I marinated it in some very simple mix of lemon, salt and pepper. I used only about 1/2 a kilo by the way and to this i added the juice of 2 lemons, their rind, salt and freshly cracked black pepper. I set it aside for about 20 minutes. When you're running low on time, you can use McCormick's lemon pepper chicken mix and it will do wonderfully as well.

Next I washed the potatoes and cut them into halves, skin on.

Next I prep the oven, 200 degress C.

After about 20 minutes, you can place the chicken wings at the bottom of your ramekin or baking pan. Next put the potatoes on top. Then put about 2 cubes of unsalted butter on top then place in your oven and bake for about 40 minutes.

I thought about the greens I will use for this dish and remembered that I only had native spinach in the ref (an all time favorite of my mine by the way since I was little). Since I didnt have anything else at hand to use as a dressing I decided that I will just add in the spinach when Im ready to serve the dish.

So I boiled about a cup of water. When water is boiling, turn off flame and add in the spinach to the pot of boiling water. After about a minute or two, drain the pot and put blanched spinach onto a bowl of cold water to stop it from cooking further.

After 40 minutes of baking take out your baking tray or ramekin and see how the chicken is cooking. Sometimes, it will not brown as quickly or nicely as you expect. So you can put the dish back in the oven and bake for about 15 minutes more.

After this you can be sure that the chicken is already tender, the juices have come out nicely and the potatoes are baked to a firm and chewy texture. Transfer the chicken and potatoes into a serving tray. Arrange nicely not forgetting to include your blanched spinach.

The tray still has ample juice from the chicken left and I used it as the gravy for this dish. Ijust put in a little bit of flour and cooked it over low heat until it thickened.

M certainly did not have a smirking face when dinner was set. I asked him if it was true that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, and as an answer, he looked at me and gave me a sweet nice kiss on the lips.