When Steffie and I were in Ireland last June we stumbled on the Cork Farmer’s Market that runs every Saturday. Upon browsing we came across a woman who sold fresh baked pasties and we each purchased a free range organic chicken & mushroom pastie to heat up later that evening for dinner. Easily one of the best meals we had during our two week stay, and that’s saying a LOT since we ate so well!

Craving for the delicious indulgence once more, I decided to attempt the recipe myself with a little help from Tea and Wheaten Bread blog, written by Brenda, an Irish woman. I went my own way in many aspects of this recipe, but I definitely used her recipe as an anchor. Everything was experimental, but well worth the effort because these turned out absolutely delicious! Not quite as wonderful as that woman in Cork pasties, but not too bad for an American!



CHICKEN & MUSHROOM PASTIES

Pastry Dough
Confession: I cheated and did not make my own. I really did not have the time or energy, plus I haven’t made enough successful dough to give me the confidence to risk on this recipe. Instead, I used the Trader Joe’s pie crust dough (which I also use for pie). THOROUGHLY recommended for those of you short on time or dough making skills.

Filling
2 chicken breasts, skinless/boneless
1 small sweet onion or 1 large shallot, diced
Garlic cloves (to taste), diced
2 c. chicken broth
1 bay leaf
sea salt & pepper, pinch/to taste
1/3 c. sherry

Take all of the filling ingredients above, throw them in your slow cooker and place on high for four hours. Leave it, forget it, have a glass of sherry and go about your day.

- About 20-30 minutes before your chicken is ready, take a package of mushrooms, remove their stems, slice them up and throw them into the slow cooker. Alternatively, saute them in a little bit of sherry and a dot of butter.

- When your chicken is ready, move the breasts to a bowl and shred them. Slow-cooking will have made them extraordinarily tender and easy to shred. Set aside.

- Using a slotted spoon, remove the mushrooms and place them in the bowl with the shredded chicken.

- Preheat oven to 400F

- In a medium sauce pan make a slurry using 1/3rd c. left over slow-cooker broth, milk/cream (as needed) and either flour slowly whisked in to thicken or the old cornstarch/water thickener treatment. Season as you like.

- When the slurry has come to a nice, thick consistency, remove it from heat and add the chicken and mushrooms, mixing well.

- In a small bowl, crack and egg and whisk it until thoroughly beaten.

- Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper, set next to area where you will work with dough.

- On a lightly floured surface, set out your dough. If you’re using the TJ brand like I suggested, take a pizza slicer and divide the pie crusts in halves. If you made your own, do as Brenda suggests and make your dough into a round and use a dinner plate to cut a circle from.

- Spoon the filling into the center of each circle. Brush the circle with egg wash, fold over and pinch close with your fingers or fork tongs.

- Place each pastie on parchment paper and brush dough with more egg wash.

- Bake anywhere from 20-30 minutes, until dough is golden brown.

NOTES
- When I made these, I clearly did not cut my circle in half, so I only made two HUGE pasties. They were insane. Yeah, cut those suckers in half so that each dough circle is roughly 4.5″ in diameter and not a standard pie crust NINE inches!
- When making the slurry, you can also add some chicken bouillon.