Welcome to 2025 and a happy new year!
It seems only yesterday that I crafted my first musings for you in January 2024 with great anticipation for the year ahead. Like many of us, January is often the time I find myself reflecting on both what has been and what is to come.
After an incredibly busy festive season, one craves the stillness of the New Year, enjoying time in the kitchen to creatively recharge and curate new dishes to form the menu for the midwinter months. With not much available to us in the name of fresh produce, I find myself grateful for the slower pace of January, turning challenges into an opportunity to be innovative with our developments.
At home, however, January is the perfect time to hunker down with classic, comforting dishes, full of delicious ingredients to warm the spirit and ones to take pleasure in making too. One of my childhood favourites is a Chicken, Leek and Mushroom Plate Pie – the perfect combination of umami, earthy flavours and the gentle sweetness of alliums that are at the height of their season right now. It’s a great way to use up Sunday leftovers too.
Chicken, Leek & Mushroom Plate Pie
Serves 4
Equipment
23cm diameter deep pie plate
Ingredients
1 tbsp olive oil
100g leeks, trimmed and sliced
115g brown cap mushrooms
400ml chicken stock
300ml double cream
400g cooked chicken pieces
1 tbsp roughly chopped tarragon
Salt and cracked black pepper
350g ready-rolled puff pastry sheets
1 egg, beaten
Method
1. Preheat the oven to 200°C.
2. Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan over a medium heat. Add the leeks and cook for one minute.
3. Add the mushrooms and cook for another minute.
4. Add the chicken stock and double cream to the pan. Bring to the boil and reduce the liquid until it starts to thicken slightly.
5. Then add the chicken pieces and tarragon. Season with salt and pepper and stir thoroughly
6. Once the chicken has heated through, remove from the heat and spoon the pie mixture into the pie plate, filling it right up.
7. Cut out the pastry to size so that it will cover your dish and then lay it on top. Cut around the side of the plate to remove excess and then crimp the pastry at the edges to seal the dish.
8. Brush the egg wash over the pastry to glaze.
9. Place the dish in the oven and bake for 30 minutes, or until golden brown and the pastry has cooked.
10. When ready, remove from the oven and serve immediately.
A foodie find
Shopping for local produce is one of my favourite things to do, and recently I’ve discovered Weetons Food Hall near Harrogate, which is brimming with some of Yorkshire’s finest produce. From their stunning butchery counter to a deli and bakery, as well as fresh fruit and vegetables from their own ‘grocery’, it makes a wonderful trip out. For those passionate for all things home and garden, they have a fantastic range of home furnishings, plants, shrubs and even a floristry counter.
Time off in Yorkshire
This month I’m excited to just simply enjoying the beauty of my own local area at the heart of the Yorkshire Dales. I’m incredibly lucky to be surrounded by so many beautiful villages, moorland and walking trails, enjoying the tranquillity during the winter hibernation when our landscapes look a little less abundant. From time to time, I like to take a trip to nearby Jervaulx Abbey to admire the spectacular ruins of this 12th century Cistercian Abbey – one of many places of historic interest close by, that remind me how lucky I am to live in Yorkshire!
