Leftovers #2 - Turkey and Ham Crumble Pie

Turkey and Ham Crumble Pie 

I'm not going to give you a real recipe for this, it really is a make it up as you go along meal.

Obviously as it was Christmas I made mine with turkey and ham, but I really think it would be good with lots of other fillings - chicken and leek, beef and mushrooms, rabbit, mushrooms and chestnuts, roasted vegetables, creamy sliced potatoes and spinach for a carbohydrate spectacular!

I wanted the pie to be deep and rustic looking, so I used my big spring form tin, usually reserved for blueberry cheesecake baking.

I made a good amount of pastry - 10oz plain flour, 5oz butter, a pinch of salt rubbed together to form breadcrumbs, stirred in a generous handful of finely grated cheddar cheese and an egg yolk and then dripped in water until a firm dough was formed. Kneaded it lightly and placed in a bag to chill in the fridge.

While it's chilling, prepare your filling. I fried a chopped onion and a couple of crushed cloves of garlic in a little butter and olive oil. Added a cup of frozen peas, some quartered chestnut mushrooms, sprinkled in some fresh thyme leaves and a tiny bit of chopped fresh rosemary. Added my chopped left over meat, in this case turkey and ham. I popped in a Knorr chicken stock pot (a chicken stock cube will do) and added some cream to make a moist, saucy mix and finally seasoned with salt and pepper.

Another task is to make the crumble mix, 8oz plain flour, 4oz butter, pinch of salt, rubbed together to form breadcrumbs, stir in a handful of grated parmesan and some dried mixed herbs.

Taking the chilled pastry from the fridge I rolled it out and lined the tin, trimming it roughly along the top. I baked it blind at GM5/190C. Because of the high sides you need to make sure its well packed to stop them from sagging (as an after thought I considered that if you didn't trim the pastry until after baking the perhaps the overhang would stop any sagging).

After about 20 minutes remove from the oven, take out the beans (or whatever you use to bake blind - I have a jar of well baked dried chick peas). Fill your pie with your chosen filling, top with the crumble mix and bake until golden and bubbling, about 30 minutes depending on your oven.

And that's that, serve it hold or cold, I served mine hot, with creamy mash and green vegetables as below. It was a great savoury tasting concoction I was very pleased with it, it was deep and satisfying and it was certainly one of the tastiest things we had over Christmas, an excellent pie.

It would be great to hear what combinations you try.