Chicken pie with homemade filo

Chicken pie Source: supplied (by Angela Nicolettou)

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Practise your skills in homemade filo by making a flavoursome chicken pie. Angela Nicolettou's recipe includes hazelnuts and sultanas for that crunchy and slightly sweet taste. Use Angela's recipe for filo to enclose the pita mix in a crunchy yet light and fluffy pastry and you'll never look back. Warning: you might become the most popular person in dinner parties!

Kotopita - Chicken pie

Ingredients

1 x 1.5 kg chicken (or 4 marylands)

1 onion, chopped

2 carrots, chopped

1 stalk celery, chopped

1 leek, sliced

200g kefalograviera or pecorino cheese, grated

extra virgin olive oil

2 eggs, beaten

1 tsp cinnamon, ground

¼ tsp cloves, ground

¼ tsp nutmeg, ground

½ cup currants

½ cup roasted hazelnuts or almonds, roughly chopped

¼ cup parsley, chopped

1 batch of filo pastry

Source: Supplied

Method

Place the chicken in a large saucepan with the carrot, onion and celery and cover with cold water. Bring to the boil and skim off any froth. Continue to simmer until the chicken is well cooked (about 1 hour). Remove chicken and vegetables and let cool enough for you to handle. Remove all the meat from the bones and finely chop the vegetables. Strain the stock and reserve.

Heat a fry pan and cook the leek in 2 tbs of olive oil until soft. Add the chicken and vegetables, spices, hazelnuts (or almonds), currants, parsley, ½ cup of stock and season with salt and pepper. Set aside.

When cool, add the cheese and the eggs and mix well. Heat oven to 180C and oil a 30cm shallow baking dish.

Cut the pastry into 7 pieces and shape each one into a disk as flat as you can, using your hands. Oil each disk and rest for 15 mins.

Make a pile with 4 disks and roll to about 5mm thickness and large enough to cover the base and sides of the baking dish.

Roll out and stretch (once it is thin enough you can use your hands to gently stretch the dough) each remaining disk (3 in total) so each is large enough to cover the pie (30cm diameter). You now have one thicker piece for the base and 3 thin pieces of pastry for the top. Lightly oil each piece.

Place the thicker filo pastry sheet at the bottom of the baking dish, so that the base is covered and the remaining pastry hangs over the edge. Brush the base and sides with oil and add the filling. Cover the top with the three remaining sheets, one on top of the other and the fold over any of the overhanging filo until you have a pie with a slightly messy looking top layer.

Brush with olive oil. Mark each piece of the pie by cutting the top of the pie into wedges or squares depending on how you want to serve. Wet your hands and sprinkle the top of the pie with water. Bake for 30 mins or until golden brown. Serve warm or at room temperature.