Filthy pie and super green salad
I’ve been working up in Scotland quite a lot over the last few months and whilst there came across two excellent local treats: macaroni pies (maracroni cheese, in a pie) and chicken tikka pie (you can figure it out). Good as they are I had to wonder, what happens when the two meet? Filthy dirty deliciousness, that’s what.
What to serve with a pie made of curry and cheese? A super healthy, crispyy, sharp salad, as invented by my lass, inspired by an M&S salad.
Using precooked noggets from the deli counter, premade pastry and tinned macaroni make this super quick. The salad takes a bit of chopping but is well worth it.
You will need
For the pie
- Premade short crust pasty
- Tesco’s tikka chicken bites (about 10)
- A jar of tikka marsala sauce
- A tin of macaronni cheese
- A chunk of strong cheese (I used up some dry red leicester)
- I added some chilli extract to pep us the sauce a bit
For the salad
- A handful of sugar snap peas, cut into inch long pieces
- A sharp apple, grated
- A equal amount of cucumber, diced
- A handful of coriander, fine snipped
- An inch of giner finey grated
- A couple of tablespoons of soy
- A couple of tablespoons of cider vinegar
- A single tablespoon of seseme oil
- A handful of punpkin seeds
Do
- Pop the oven on at 180oC
- Line a high sides pie tin with pasty and put it into the oven to blind bake for 5 minutes
- Chop the chicken into chunks which will fit well
- Heat the chicken in a good slug of the sauce until its well coated and hot right though. This was when I decided to add some naga extract
- Heat the macaroni cheese
- Pack the pie 3⁄4 full of chicken mix, packing it into the corners
- Top with mac’n’cheese
- Top that with a handful of cheese
- Bang it in the oven for 20 minutes. Everything is already cooked so this is just crisping up the pie casing and the cheese top
- Meanwhile make the salad by mixing it all well
Result
Rich, cheesey, spicy, a mix of textures. It’s not classy, but oh my goodness, it is delicious.
