here's a home-sized version of a filling we developed for a collab with donald's pies of cardiff. it’s like your average chicken pie, but with every element totally maxed out.
8-hour ramen soup gravy, seasoned with our shio tare which contains 4 different kinds of salts, sake, mirin, lots of goodies, and stuffed with fall-apart shio koji-marinated chicken thighs and sweet charred spring onions. it doesn’t taste super exotic but uses japanese techniques and ingredients to amplify the best of british / new zealand - the humble pie. oishii!
It’s savoury, comforting, deeply chickeny, and somewhere between a ramen shop and a really good chicken pie.
* makes enough for one large pie, or 4–6 individual pies.
INGREDIENTS
for the chicken
- 700g boneless chicken thighs, skinless or skin-on
- 40g shio koji
- 400ml tori paitan soup, plus a little extra if needed
- 1 bunch spring onions
- 1 tbsp neutral oil
- ½–1 tsp ground white or black pepper
for the seasoning
- 1 tbsp sake
- 2 tsp honteri mirin or mirin-style seasoning
- 1 tbsp water
- ½ tsp white sugar
- 1 tsp fine sea salt, plus more to taste
- ½ tsp smoked salt
- ½ tsp MSG
to thicken
- 15g potato starch
- 30g cold water
METHOD
1. marinate the chicken
mix the chicken thighs with the shio koji, cover, and refrigerate for at least 4 hours, or overnight if you have time.
before cooking, lightly scrape off any thick excess shio koji. you don’t need to rinse the chicken — just remove any heavy patches, as they can catch and burn.
2. brown the chicken gently
heat a wide pan over a medium heat and add a little neutral oil.
add the chicken thighs and brown gently on both sides. don’t go too hot: shio koji caramelises quickly, so you’re looking for golden colour rather than a hard sear.
if the pan starts to catch, turn the heat down. a little caramelisation is good; bitterness is not.
3. braise in chicken stock
add the chicken stock (ideally tori paitan) to the pan, scraping up any good browned bits from the bottom.
bring to a gentle simmer, then cover and cook for around 30–40 minutes, or until the chicken is fully cooked and easy to shred.
add a splash more tori paitan if it reduces too much.
4. char the spring onions
while the chicken is cooking, char the spring onions in a hot dry pan, under a grill, or over a flame.
you want blackened patches and softened centres, not fully burnt onions.
roughly chop and set aside.
5. shred the chicken
remove the chicken from the pan and shred it into chunky pieces.
return it to the tori paitan cooking liquid, then add the charred spring onions.
6. season
add the sake, mirin, water, sugar, salt, smoked salt, MSG and pepper.
stir well, then simmer for 2–3 minutes so the alcohol cooks off and the seasoning settles into the paitan.
taste and adjust with a little more salt if needed. the filling should taste slightly more seasoned than you might expect, because pastry will soften the flavour once baked.
7. thicken
mix the potato starch with the cold water to make a slurry.
bring the filling back to a gentle simmer, then stir in the slurry a little at a time. cook for 1–2 minutes until glossy and thickened.
the filling should be spoonable and cohesive, but not stiff or gluey.
8. cool before using
spread the filling into a shallow dish and cool fully before filling your pie.
once cold, it should thicken further and be easy to spoon into pastry.
TO USE IN A PIE!
use the filling cold.
spoon into your pie dish or individual pie cases, top with pastry, brush with egg wash, and bake until the pastry is deeply golden and the filling is piping hot.
as a guide, bake at 190°C for 25–35 minutes, depending on pie size.
NOTES
if you don’t have tori paitan, you can use a rich chicken stock. The result will be lighter, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
if you don’t have shio koji, you can still make the recipe, but the chicken will lose some of that gentle sweetness and fermented depth. add a little extra salt to the seasoning if needed.
MSG is optional, but recommended. It gives the filling the same savoury depth you’d expect from a ramen shop.
