Greetings Gastronauts! This is Keef Cooks, I’m Keef, and today I’m going to do something oh,
a little bit late for Pi Day - but it is a pie. I’m going to make a chicken balti pie, oh yeah.
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First off, thanks to Laura Ritter who made a donation via PayPal which is much appreciated, yes it is.
And yes, we're back to being Team Gastronauts! So if you watched last week's video,
Patrick Ormerod had requested that I returned to that instead of ‘Ello You Lot.
A few more people have agreed with him – so that’s Ben Stones
and Karen Daley - okay Team Gastronauts it is. I might make a t-shirt. Although Neil Pye did
have an alternative suggestion - Oi You Bunch of Degenerate Gits - maybe not.
Okay, chicken bollti pie or chicken balti pie - I’m not sure which is the correct pronunciation.
I think it might end up being something like sconn or scone.
It was requested by Darcy Mae. Chicken Balti pies are massively
popular at football matches and elsewhere so I’ll show you how to make my version.
And it's quite easy, quite straightforward - if you're an expert in pies!
If you enjoy this video, give it a like, share, subscribe and let's get on with it.
A belated Pi Day pie - chicken balti pie.
I’m going to make the filling first so the ingredients for that are...
about a half kilo of chicken thighs,
a medium onion, half a red pepper (capsicum), half a green one.
A couple of tomatoes or more if you've got them - a squirt of tomato puree and a chunk of ginger - a
couple of centimetres (about an inch). Three garlic cloves,
a teaspoon or two of fenugreek leaves and about the same amount of fresh coriander.
Also, mild chilli powder, mild curry powder, garam masala, ground coriander, turmeric, four
tablespoons of rapeseed oil and salt to taste. Quantities of those, about a teaspoon each.
I’m using chicken thighs because they have the best flavour,
but you do have to skin them and debone them. If you can't be bothered doing that you can use
chicken breast, easy peasy. Okay let's chop things up.
First job is to deal with the chicken - get the skin off. When you debone a chicken thigh
there's a little bone in there - just find it and cut down. Cut through the flesh as close to it as you can.
There we go - a little bit of meat on that, that's okay because I’m going to
use that in stock and the skin as well. A little bit of
bone there. Okay so then just cut that into small dice.
Right that's 510 grams of chicken. Now wash everything that's been in contact
with the raw chicken before we do anything else. Now we'll slice up some veggies, so you want to
top and tail your onion, cut it in half and peel it and then use your magic knife to dice
the onions quite small.
[ BLAM ]
And also the red and green bell peppers
[ BLAM AGAIN ]
capsicums.
Now peel and mince the ginger and garlic. Also I’m going to quarter these
somewhat past their sell-by date tomatoes.
[ SPLAT ]
[ CRUNCH ]
[ SQUEEEEZE ]
Ginger, squish.
We start by heating four tablespoons of rapeseed oil in a frying pan or something similar
and when it's warmed up add the chopped onion and let that cook for about five minutes.
And it's okay if it browns a little bit. And then add the garlic and the ginger and a pinch of salt.
And then add the chopped tomatoes and a squirt of tomato puree and stir those in.
Let those cook for a couple of minutes and then add the bell peppers.
Cook for a couple more minutes then add a teaspoon of chilli powder,
a half teaspoon of turmeric, a half teaspoon of
coriander powder and a half teaspoon of curry powder and about half of the fenugreek.
Now we'll put the chicken in the pan and let that bubble away for three
or four minutes. Notice we don't sort of pre-brown it or sauté it.
Something? about a cup of water, reduce it to a simmer and just let it bubble away
for about five minutes.
Then add the rest of the fenugreek and the chopped up coriander leaves.
Stir that well, give it a taste, adjust for seasoning and then you're done.
Take it off the heat, let it cool down.
For the pastry I’m going to make
a basic shortcrust but with lard and butter. So I’ve got 500 grams of plain (all-purpose)
flour and 125 grams each of lard and unsalted butter cut into cubes. And a teaspoon of salt
Just mix those together.
[ WHIZZY WHIZZY MIXY MIXY ]
And we also want just enough water to make it come together in a ball.
So we'll just add the fat gradually and it'll get rubbed in into a kind of
coarse breadcrumb texture. If you don't have one of these
beauties then you can do it by hand with your fingertips but be careful not to melt the fat.
[ CHUGGY CHUGGY ]
So there's the flour and fat mixture - there's still some quite big lumps in there but yeah.
I’m going to add the water by hand so we can see what's going on.
Basically it'll take about a cup of water to make it come together.
Right that's more or less it. I’m going to wrap that in plastic film
and stick it in the fridge to rest for half an hour.
Right, everything should be nice and cool now so I’m going to assemble the pies
and my plan is to try and make four quite large ones in these in these rings.
If there's any leftover stuff I’ll do some smaller ones in these rings, we'll see.
Okay so we need some flour on the worktop...
[ DREAMY MUSIC ]
I buttered the inside of these rings because they're definitely not non-stick.
Right, where’s me pastry? Ah, in the fridge.
Okay let's uh
grab a chunk. I’m going to roll out the pastry lids first.
Right now I’ll just cut four discs.
And I’ll put these back in the fridge to chill.
So we'll roll out some pastry that's big enough to do the bottom and sides of that…
then we lower it in and press it down all around and trim off the excess.
But leave a bit of a rim.
And I’ll pop them on this baking sheet lined with greaseproof paper - parchment paper.
And I’ll stick that in the fridge for at least half an hour to rest.
Now I’ve got plenty of pastry left over so I’m going to try a little experiment.
I’m going to currify - currify? - the pastry. So I’ve never done this before but I’m just thinking
maybe if we have mildly curry flavoured pastry… and some yellow turmeric colouring might be quite
interesting. We'll find out won't we? Obviously this would have been better
if I thought of it before finishing the pastry, but anyway, come back in a bit.
Here we go - vaguely yellow possibly, probably, curry flavoured pastry.
Now, time to assemble the pies and in honour of Pi Day I’ve got me Pi stamp.
This is a thing that I designed about 10 years ago, before I had a 3D printer. But I had a
friend in Finland who volunteered to print it. It took 11 hours on the machine that he used.
And I can't find it. I thought I’d print another one and it took
an hour and a half but yeah and it's orange. Whack a Pi on each lid.
So I’ll just put a lid on this one - I’ve got a bowl of water I’ll just moisten the inside
of the rim. The lid, press it in.
Now you want to get your oven preheated to 180 Celsius for a fan oven (convection oven),
that's 200 for a regular one and that is gas 5.
And now we're going to glaze the pies so get yourself an egg,
and a little sploosh of milk,
and whizz those together.
And paint the tops of the pies all over. Finishing touch, I’m just going to sprinkle some
cumin seeds on the top. I’m going to put those in the oven for 35 minutes and turn them round halfway through.
[ OVEN ROAR ]
[ CLUNK ]
[ BANG ]
“Ze tahm eez urp.”
They look all right - some of them leaked. Could be a problem. I’ll just let those
cool down on there for about five minutes and I’ll start messing about with them.
Oh yeah.
“And now - no later - no now, it's taste test time with Mrs Keef Cooks!
[ CHEERIN ]
“You all right darling?" "Yeah yeah. Pacman pie."
"Oh yeah chicken balti, yes, yes, yes. Have I just ruined your picture?"
"No." "Okay."
[ LAFFS ]
"A bit."
"Hmm. Okay, lovely soft light pastry... can't get it on me fork, but never mind."
"Okay, now you have to try this bit."
"Why?" "It's different."
"Is it different. This is lovely."
"Okay so this is curried pie."
"Well you can't really tell but..." "No don't tell me ..."
"Just try the pastry." "Oh okay. Oh it's yellow. Have you put turmeric in it?"
"Mmm."
"Can't really tell, no." "And curry powder as well."
"I like it." "Yeah it's nice."
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[ LAFFIN AND CUTLERY CLINKIN AN CLANKIN ]
"Well I’m sure it's not less palaver to make than doing rice but very nice to have those"
"in the fridge, microwave for lunch. Oh look at the pretty little bits of seeds on the top."
[ SIGH ] [ SIGH ] "Long day burble burble falling over."
"So yeah. Yeah, brilliant. Happy Pi Day." "Oh yeah."
"And..."
“Thanks for watching, and see you next time.”
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"Gastronauts. Team U Lot, we're not that anymore. We're Team Gastronaut. There will be a t-shirt!"