Chicken Bacon and Sweetcorn Pie

To make this Chicken Bacon and Sweetcorn Pie, you will need the following ingredients:
- 2 full size corn on the cobs. You'll slice the corn off the cobs with a knife or corn stripper. If you want to use frozen corn, you can, but the sauce will become a little more runny from the water it will expel during cooking.
- 1 large leek sliced lengthways and then chopped into roughly half inch slices and then washed
- Chicken breasts (650g / 23oz), which you'll thinly slice. I like to avoid using chopping boards with raw poultry and meat, so I actually just hold the chicken breasts and use scissors and cut them into thin slices.
- Smoked back bacon (300g / 11oz) which you will dice. Again I just use scissors to do that.
- Tarragon, ideally fresh for better flavour, but dried will do also. You'll need one tablespoon of chopped fresh tarragon or 1 teaspoon dried.
- Ready-rolled puff pastry sheet which will save on a lot of time. You can use a ready made block of pastry instead and roll that out to the size and shape you need, but note that the recipe prep time will increase. However, if you need to use a round pie dish, it's best to do that. Also, if you are used to making your own pasty, then of course go right ahead and do that instead of going for this shop-bought option.
- Sauce ingredients you'll need are a little butter, flour, milk and a pinch of nutmeg (if you have it).

It is essentially an 9 step process:
1) you'll prepare all your ingredients
2) fry the chicken pieces just to seal them, then add to bottom of the oven dish
3) sauté the leeks and bacon together in the butter
4) stir in the flour for 1 minute, then gradually stir in the milk
5) you'll then turn off the heat and stir in black pepper, tarragon and nutmeg (if using)
6) next, sprinkle the corn over the chicken in the oven dish and spoon over the thick sauce
7) top with the ready rolled pastry sheet, cut in steam vents and brush with egg
8) bake for 30 minutes

We love to have it with roast potatoes because we are a roasties mad family, but you can serve it with mashed potato, boiled potatoes or even chips! I also like to serve with with a green veg on the side, usually broccoli.

Yes, and you have a couple options here:
Option 1 - You could prepare all the ingredients in advance and refrigerate until ready to cook, or
Option 2 - you could make the whole pie and hold off putting the puff pastry top on. This can be done earlier the same day or the day before. Just cover the oven dish with clingflim (plastic wrap) and refrigerate until about an hour before you want to cook it, and take it out of the fridge to come up to room temperature. Then top it with the pastry and bake it. Just bear in mind if you do that, even if you bring it up to room temperature you may well need to bake it for an extra five minutes or so.

You can if you really need to, but bear in mind that water will come out of the frozen corn which may result in some excess liquid in the pie.

You can if you prefer, or if that's all you have or can get. Just bear in mind, it will make for a denser harder crust.

I haven't tested it but so long as it's a large pie dish (to fit all that yummy filling!) it should be ok. Also, using a rectangular oven dish lends itself better to using a ready rolled puff pastry sheet. If you do want to use a circular pie dish, you can cut and pinch back together the ready rolled pastry, making a top to fit. However, it would be better to use a block of ready-made pastry and roll it into a circle and use a round pie dish.

For little ones, they would have so much fun cutting out pastry shapes to top the pie with, instead of topping it with the whole sheet of pastry. If you have a heart or star cookie cutter, they would be perfect! Just make sure you overlap the shapes slightly so there are no gaps. Then brush carefully with the egg.

You can store any chicken, bacon and corn pie leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days (cook day + 2). The leftovers can also be frozen. Just defrost for 24 hours in the fridge and reheat in the microwave lifting up the pastry and stirring halfway and, until steaming hot all the way through. Reheating it in the microwave does however mean the pastry will not be crispy.

You can reheat leftovers in the oven at the same temperature. I would recommend heating the filling first and then popping on the pastry top after a bit so it doesn't over cook. I can't recommend how long to reheat it for as that will depend on how much you are reheating. Just test the centre of the filling to make sure it's steaming hot before serving.

You can read more on safe food storage and reheating here.

This Chicken Bacon and Sweetcorn pie is suitable for nut-free diets (so long as the pastry sheet states so). It is NOT suitable for those with an egg, diary or gluten allergy or for vegetarians or vegans.