Chickherd's Pie with Fairyrings & Hawk's Wing

One of my go to meals when the temperature drops and you just want to crawl into a casserole dish for the week is shepherd's pie. Or, in the case of using ground chicken instead of the traditional lamb, chickherd's pie... Meal of chicken herders everywhere.

Naturally herder's pie of any kind is better with mushrooms. In the case of the dish I prepared this week, I used some fairyrings that I dried last summer as well as some hawk's wing (aka Dryad's saddle or pheasant's back) from last spring. The meaty flavour and robust texture of the fairyrings is a great addition to the meat portion of the pie and I use the unique taste of the hawk's wing almost as a seasoning.

--- The Recipe ---

The Ingredients:

- (Dried) Fairyring Mushrooms... 1/2 cup

- (Dried) Hawk's Wing........... 3 or 4 dried slices
- Ground Chicken................ 1 thing of
- Garlic........................ 2 cloves
- Shallots...................... 2 
- Celery........................ 1 stock
- Baking Potato................. 2
- Sweet Potato.................. 1 of like size
- Peas.......................... 1 cup
- Corn.......................... 1 cup
- Chicken Stock................. 1 1/2 cups
- Soya sauce.................... 2 tbsps
- Butter........................ 2 tbsps
- Flour......................... 1 tbsp 
- Mozzarella Cheese............. to top
- Parmisiano Cheese............. to top
- Cooking Oil................... 1 tbsp
- Chilis
- Thyme
- Salt

The Process:

Warm the stock and use it to rehydrate your mushrooms (break the hawk's wing into smaller pieces). If using fresh shrooms, skip the rehydration and use less stock in the recipe. Also a good time to get your potatoes baking. You're making a three layered pie and that top layer is potato so just bake and mash your potatoes the way you'd make any mashed potatoes, using the butter. I like to separate the potato skins post baking and then chop them up to sprinkle on top of the dish in the last step.

Seer your ground chicken in a pan with the oil, garlic, soya sauce, thyme, salt and chilis to taste. To prevent them burning, don't chop your garlic cloves, just toss them in whole and mash once cooked through. Use some of the stock to deglaze your pan. Then toss in the mushrooms and let them cook on the high heat for a little while before adding the remaining stock and the chopped shallots. Turn down the heat a little and let it reduce. Add the flour to form a gravy. Finally add the chopped celery, not to overcook so it remains a little crunchy.

Ladle out the meat mixture into a casserole dish. Cover it evenly with the peas and corn. Lay down your top layer of potato. Sprinkle on the cheeses and the chopped potato skins. Bake at 375º for 15 to 20 minutes then broil it for the last minute to brown the top. Let it sit for five minutes when you take it out of the oven.

These amounts are approximate and naturally you can play with this recipe a lot. The key for me is bringing out the best in those fairyrings by browning them rather than letting them stew. And dried hawk's wing has a special flavour that may not appeal to everyone so experiment with it a little for the best results.

Tip - Before dehydrating fairyrings I split their stems lengthwise. This allows them to remain edible when they are reconstituted, otherwise the stems can be too tough to be palatable.