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Cookery #1

British chicken and leek pie!

Diets are sad, as Pret-a-Manger might have told you and we couldn't agree more. SUPERSWEET supports all the food in this world! We love eating! Hopefuly this article won't put you herbivores off, eventually we will try to do something to accommodate everyone, but not those fruit loops fruitarians though - sorry. Starting off with cooking class number 1, Rhys Jones, the lovely frontman from Good Shoes will be with us and he will stay on for a while until he goes on a year long tour. What's he making today? British pie! Here we go!

Rhys: One thing I do though when I’m cooking, is that I end up eating half the food, so beware! Right! To make a chicken and leek pie, the first thing you do first is go shopping. You get 4-6 celery, one large red onion and one largish white onion, a leek and a half, a packet of mushrooms and 2 breasts of chicken...

Naturally, you will always get rotten onions. Bin them! Cut off the onions really small, cut up the celery to thin slices, cut the leek into halves and then quarters.

Cut the mushrooms in halves so they’re quite big. Put them in bowls nicely, like this.

Cut the chicken into small chunks... This is quite a bit of meat isn’t it? People moan about free range food costing more, don’t they? But you get better quality.

Wash your hands by the way, I completely forgot! Now, clean the surface so you can get the puff pastry out.

Wipe it with flour.

Make pastry paste, or cheat, like me. You buy the pastry and then you have to roll out...

What's this stain on my tummy? I spilt something the other day… But since this is cooking, it shows like I’m really getting into the cooking - messy!

Put it all around the tray and keep a section for the lid and you fold up the lid and put it inside the tray so it stays cool.

Put the whole thing in the fridge for a bit, when it gets cold it stays in position so when you put it it doesn’t just start breaking apart. There’s leftover pastry so you can recreate.

There’s so much vegetables already, but to be healthy, cut the carrots in halves, put olive oil and salt in it and roast. [SS: You need to make sure your hands don't cover the peppermill in the photos...] Oh please, I'm not a poser!

Easy huh? (Smiles).

Cook the onions first, but at the same time, separately fry the chicken lightly in olive oil so it's cooked. You fry with herbs.

Then add the leek and add the celery.

Then add the mushroom sauce or you can make a white sauce with mushrooms or you can cheat (like me) and buy mushroom soup, put that in, turn up the heat. Oh that was a good one hah? You had that photo of me pouring in, blatantly! Did you get it mid-pour?!! I’ve got to say, from doing this, I’ve learned how to work the camera!

Add the mushrooms in so they will cook, then you mix that round. Then you add them all together then you put it into the pastry,

Put the lid on top. I love cooking, this is a bit like making something isn’t it? (Laughs) It’s like doing art!

Get the yoke from an egg, and then you glaze the lid with egg yoke, you should add salt and pepper to the mixture for taste...

What?! You don't have a brush? [SS: It's not our fault that you didn't bring one though.] Yeah, I should have dreamed of what you don’t have In your kitchen! (Laughs) If you make pies, you have to have one!

Oh relax! It’s only egg, you eat it all the time! Eat it! It’s your fault, this looks a bit wet because you don’t have one of those bloody things! For pies, you have to put yoke on because then it goes brown and you know it’s done.

You just cook for half an hour at 210, whatever the thing is on your oven. Everything will be cooked already, or you just wait for the glaze to go shiny.