Chicken and Mushroom Puff Pie with a gougere crust

Want something different for dinner tonight? Try this Chicken and Mushroom Puff Pie. Creamy chicken and mushroom filling surrounded by a ring of crispy cheesy gougere pastry. Just sit back and wait for the compliments!

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Chicken and Mushroom Puff Pie

Chicken and mushroom puff pie has to be one of my favourite pies. Golden, beautifully puffed up gougere pastry, surrounding a sea of creamy chicken and mushroom. This is the ultimate comfort food.

As this pie bakes in the oven, the gougere crust puffs up to more than double in size, giving you a crispy cheesy choux pastry which is perfect for mopping up the delicious filling.

It reminds me a bit of Toad in the Hole except you’ve got a type of chicken-a-la-king filling instead of sausages and a cheesy choux-type gougere pastry instead of Yorkshire Pudding batter. So nothing like Toad in the Hole at all really 🙂 .

What are Gougeres?

Traditional gougeres are small hollow balls of savory pastry made from an egg and butter choux pastry, mixed with a generous amount of cheese. They are sometimes confused with profiteroles, but where profiteroles can be either sweet or savoury depending on the filling, gougeres are always savoury.

They are normally served fresh out of the oven as appetisers or canapes.

This chicken and mushroom pie puts a new spin on the traditional gougeres. I’ve used gougere pastry to make a chicken and mushroom pie. Instead of rolling the pastry out and lining a pie dish in the normal way, the pastry is piped around the edges of the dish. It puffs up and doubles in size during cooking and forms the perfect surround for the creamy chicken and mushroom filling.

Traditionally, gougeres are made with Gruyere or Emmentaler cheese but for this recipe, I’m just using everyday Cheddar.

Ingredients for chicken and mushroom gougere pie

Whenever I read a recipe I like to have a look at the ingredients to see whether I have everything I need. To make it easy for you – I’ve listed the ingredients below. You can get the complete list of ingredients and full instructions for making this chicken and mushroom gougere pie in the printable recipe card at the end of this post.

For the Pastry

• Butter – cut into cubes for easy melting
• Water and Milk – equal quantities combined.
• Plain Flour (sifted) – not self-raising flour. This recipe does not need any levening agent. The pastry rises as a result of steam being created from the high water content of the pastry.
• Eggs (beaten) – these get mixed into the flour an water mixture.
• Cheddar Cheese (grated) – you can use your own preferred cheese for this recipe.
• Salt – optional

For the Chicken and Mushroom filling

• Chicken Breasts – these should be boneless chicken breasts. You can use breasts with the bone in, but it will take longer to cook and you will have to pick it off the bone once the chicken is cooked.
• Onion – chopped into 1cm dice
• White Mushrooms – roughly chopped
• Frozen Peas
• Dijon Mustard – this adds to the flavour
• Pouring Cream and Milk – for making the sauce
• Cornflour – this is used to thicken the sauce
• Salt and Pepper – for seasoning – to taste. You can omit the salt if you don’t use it in your diet.
• Grated cheese – for sprinkling on top. I use cheddar, but you can use our favourite cheese, as long as it melts nicely over the top of the pie.

Make the gougere choux pastry

• Bring the liquid ingredients and the butter to a boil and allow the butter to melt (image 1 above).
• Remove from the heat and add the sifted flour and salt all at once.
• Return to the heat and beat the flour vigourously into the liquid until the mixture comes together into a ball (image 2 above). Let it cook on a low heat for 2 minutes, stirring all the time. This allows the flour to cook out.
• Now let the mixture cool so that it doesn’t cook your eggs when you add them.
• Once the mixture is cool, beat up all of the eggs and add about a quarter of the beaten egg. Mix well until it is all combined. Repeat, adding a little egg at a time, until all the eggs have been incorporated.
• The mixture will be lumpy when you first add the eggs (image 3 above), but just keep mixing and it will combine eventually.
• You should end up with a smooth paste (image 4 above).
• Mix in the grated cheese and spoon the mixture around the edges of a pie dish (shown below). The mixture will be quite soft but don’t worry – once it gets into the oven it will puff up nicely.

Make the filling

• Place the chicken breasts in a saucepan and cover with cold water. Season with salt and pepper.
• Bring to the boil then turn the heat off. Put the lid on the pan and allow the chicken to stand in the water for about 10 minutes, while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.
• The chicken will continue cooking in the residual heat and come out beautifully moist and juicy.

If you are using chicken on the bone you should not use the above method of cooking the chicken. For chicken on the bone allow the chicken to boil for at least 10 minutes before leasing to stand, to ensure that it is thoroughly cooked through.

• Saute the chopped onion in a little olive oil until translucent. Do not allow them to brown. They should be just softened.
• Add the chopped mushrooms and allow to cook with the onions until the moisture from the onions has evaporated.
• Season with salt and pepper and stir in the mustard.

• Combine the cornflour with the cream and milk (make sure there are no lumps) and add to the mixture.
• Now stir over a low heat until the mixture has thickened.
• Remove from the heat.

• Remove the chicken from the water, chop into bite-sized chunks and stir into the onion and mushroom mixture.
• Don’t worry if the chicken is still a little pink. It will continue cooking when the pie is in the oven.
• Finally stir in the peas.

Assemble and bake

How to make a Chicken and Mushroom Puff Pie

• Spoon the pastry around the edges of a pie dish (image 1 above).
• Allow the mixture to cool and then tip the whole lot into the middle of the pastry in the pie dish (image 2 above).
• It is important that the mixture is not too hot when it comes into contact with the raw dough as the heat will cause the dough to melt and it will not rise properly.
• Sprinkle with grated cheese (image 3 above).
• Place in a pre-heated oven – 400F / 200C – and bake for approximately 35 minutes until the gougere is well risen and the cheese is melted and golden (image 4 above).

Just look at how the crust has puffed up ….

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Recipe – Chicken and mushroom gougere pie

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