今日のディナーは、初めて作ってみたチキンのパイ。いわゆるクリームシチューをパイで覆ってみたものです。わたしは結婚した頃までは乳製品が苦手でほとんど食べていなかったので、クリームシチューのようなものも食べたことがなかったのですが、夫と結婚してから少しずつ慣れて随分食べられるようになりました。夫は、乳製品大好きなので、クリームシチューも好きだと思いつつこれまでほとんど作ったことがありません。一度、シンガポールで作ってみたのですが、日本の市販のルーを使ったら、そういう市販のルー独特の味が美味しく感じず、それっきりになっていましたが、今日は簡単にルーなしで作ってみました。
We cooked something we’ve never made before for dinner tonight. It’s a pie filled with creamy chicken and vegetables. In Japanese, the filling is called “Cream Stew” or “White Stew”, which is very popular. Until I got married, I hardly ate dairy because I just didn’t like it and also I tend to be sensitive to dairy. However, since marrying I have been trying more and more of dairy and can eat some now. My husband loves dairy and I often thought he would love Japanese “Cream Stew” but haven’t actually cooked one except once in Singapore. When I cooked it I used Japanese store-bought roux and I found I didn’t like its taste so much, so since then I hadn’t tried again. Today, we cooked it without roux in quite a simple way.
バターとオリーブオイルで塩胡椒したチキンのもも肉を皮目からしっかり焼いて一旦取り出し、お野菜（今日は玉ねぎ、人参、セロリアック、イタリアのカボチャ、細いリーク）を加えてざっと炒め、強力粉を大さじ１位加えてしっかり炒めたところに白ワイン１カップ入れて煮立たせて少し煮詰め、そこにお水をひたひたに加えてお塩をして、沸騰したら火を弱めて３０分くらい煮ました。人参を大きく切りすぎたのでなかなか柔らかくならず、ここで人参だけ取り出して別に煮て戻すことに。
We seared chicken thighs in butter and olive oil on both sides making sure specially the skin side is nice and brown. Then took them out and sautéed the vegetables (we used onion, carrot, celeriac, Italian pumpkin and baby leek), before adding strong flour (about 1tbsp), stirring well until no flour was left white, then added 1 cup of white one, let it boil a little and cooked it down a little, then added water enough to nearly cover everything, salt & pepper, turn the heat down when boiling and simmered it for about 30 minutes. As I cut the carrots too large, they weren’t soft enough but everything else was done after 30 minutes, so I took the carrots out and cooked them in another pan until tender. (Next time I should cut them smaller!)
これを耐熱容器に入れてそのまま置いておいて、食べる１時間ほど前にクリームとミルクを適当に加え、耐熱容器の淵にお水を塗って市販のパフペイストリーを被せて淵を押さえつけ、真ん中に空気穴を開けて溶き卵を全体に塗って、２００度（ファン）のオーブンで２５分ほど焼いて、１８０度くらいに下げて更に１５分ほど。
We put everything other than the liquid in a gratin dish and let it cool until about an hour before dinner. When the time came, we poured some cream and milk into the liquid, mixed everything well and poured it into the gratin dish. We wetted the edges of the dish, put a sheet of store-bought puff pastry over the top, pushed it down around the edges, made a little hole in the middle, covered the pastry with egg wash and put it in the pre-heated oven at 210C (fan) and cooked it for 25 minutes, then turned the temperature down to 180C and cooked it for a further 15 minutes.
作りにあたってネット検索したのですが、レシピによって温度も焼き時間もまちまち。とりあえず高温で焼いて、膨らんで色がしっかりついたら温度を下げる方法で焼いてみました。真ん中の膨らみがいまいちでしたが、まずまずうまく焼けました。ちゃんと中身が熱々かどうかが心配だったのですが、熱々になっていました。美味しく出来ました！やはり、市販のルーを使わない方が美味しい。
I did some search online to find out the appropriate temperature and cooking time but got many different results so we decided to cook it at high temperature until the pastry puffs up and browns then turn the heat down and cook for further 15 minutes so the filling is nice and hot. The middle part didn’t puff up so much, but it was good enough. We were worried if the filling was hot enough but it was – and was very tasty. I definitely prefer “cream stew” without using store-bought roux.
