Sausage and Chicken Pie with Sage and Onion Stuffing

This pie is pretty much Delia Smith’s recipe from the Complete Cookery Course.  I added some leftover sage and onion stuffing and adjusted the sausage layer slightly!

This is a lovely way to use up leftover cooked chicken and stuffing, and stretch the dregs of Sunday’s roast dinner one more day.  If you don’t have any leftover stuffing, you can make it fresh – the method I give below is the way my friend’s lovely late mother-in-law used to make it.

For the stuffing :

3 or 4 thick slices of bread, crusts cut off

½ small onion

2 generous handfuls of fresh sage (or 1 dsp of dry)

Salt and pepper to taste

Simply pop everything into a blender or food processor and blitz.  Heat a little goose fat, duck fat, chicken dripping (or olive oil!) in a frying pan and sautee the stuffing for a few minutes until it becomes slightly crispy.  Set aside to cool.

For the pie :

1 pack of shortcrust pastry

8 good meaty sausages

Appx 1 cup of leftover cooked chicken

Appx 1 cup of leftover stuffing

¼ tsp ground mace

½ tsp sage

Salt and pepper to taste

The dish I used is a 7” diameter quiche dish.

Skin the sausages and place into a large mixing bowl as you go.  Season with salt and pepper, add the sage and mace and then mix together with your hands.

Roll out your pastry and line the base of your dish, spread half the sausagemeat over the pastry, then add half the stuffing, all of the chicken and season with a little salt and pepper.  Add the rest of the stuffing and finally the remainder of the sausagemeat.  Roll out a pastry lid and top and finish your pie.

I cooked mine at 180^oC / 350^oF / gas mark 5 for an 45 to 50 minutes.  If the pie begins to brown too much pop a folded sheet of greaseproof paper on top.