Irish Chicken Asparagus Pies, Family Style and Individual Pies

I am playing with the Irish theme this week since St. Patrick's Day is coming. Yesterday, I had a little fun with the theme, the ingredients I have at hand, and made two versions of this Irish Chicken Asparagus Pie.

! use Asparagus often when it's available, the spears are a delight to eat on their own, but you can use the edible parts of the stems after you have broken the woody parts off. I learned to "snap" Asparagus, before cooking them, to get the freshest part of the Asparagus Spear, however, there is still 1/2 an inch of the stems or more which can still be used in a Stew, Pot Pie, or any other dish you don't require a full spear to show.

This dish also allows me to use up some chicken I had in the freezer from the Traditional Chicken Dinner I made a few weeks ago. Not only do I get to play with decorating these Chicken Pies, I get to update a post and stay on track with the original purpose of my posting. Using what you have to make the most of your meals.

These Chicken Asparagus Pies, whether large or small, are delightful, delicious and a wonderful use of ingredients. Plus they look amazing when you take the time to work the pastry and add some decorative touches as I have done for the purpose of this post. I added Celtic "Braids" in keeping with the St. Patrick's Day theme too.










Again I have made two styles with these pies. I used the full recipe for the Easy Pie Pastry Dough to make everything in this post.  Recipe HERE. After many attempts using other peoples recipes, I started adjusting the fats I used and added a little ingredient of my own. It's pliable, easy to work with and I always get a very flaky crust, as long as it isn't over worked.

I started with the individual Pies, which I made 5 of, I wanted to keep some pastry aside for playing with the decoration.  This recipe will give you 6 Individual pies if you don't want to get too fancy.

For both Recipes - Oven - Preheat it to  375 F

Please note: I used Gruyere Cheese, though you can substitute with Parmesan or another Salty Cheese.

Filling Ingredients


1/2 Cup Chicken Meat, Pre-cooked, Chopped
1/4 Cup Asparagus Stems, Chopped
1/2 Carrot, Grated
2 Slices Yellow Onion, Diced
7 to 8 Spinach Leaves and Stems, Chopped
1 TSP Prepared Yellow Mustard
1/2 TSP Marjoram
1/2 TSP Tarragon
A Pinch of Basil
A Pinch of  Cracked Black Pepper
A Pinch of Salt
1 TBSP Vegetable Stock
1 TBSP Gruyere Cheese, Finely Grated
1 TBSP Mozzarella Cheese, Finely Grated.

1 Egg with 1/2 TSP Mustard - Whisked to brush the edges and pastry shells.

Stir the ingredients together, place back in the fridge until ready to use.

When cutting the circles for these styles of Pies, the bottom disk is smaller then the top. The upper portion needs to be larger to mound over the ingredients placed in the centre and you need enough play to ensure the upper outer edge will seal to the lower outer edge.

The lower disk I cut with a 4 inch cutter, the upper disk was cut with a 5 inch cutter.

 Brush the lower disk edges with the egg wash.

Add your ingredients to the centre of each disk.

Lay the upper disk over the ingredients and begin to press the edges together, to seal the dough.

Start at one edge and work in a circle until you have it all sealed.

Any ingredients which fall out, either push back into the centre, or remove to ensure your seal is complete.

Brush the tops of the pastry and include venting holes with a sharp knife, at their tops.



The Decorative Braid


Many Celtic pieces have celtic knots and celtic braids adorning the artwork or clothing. I love the look of them and have played with a braid and a small trinity knot with these small pies.


If you are entertaining for St. Patricks Day, it's an easy way to get a Celtic look to the Pastry Shell. This technique can also be used to make wreathes for other occasions to. It's a good technique to know.



I am hoping you know how to braid, I have images to show the technique, but describing it more then, "crossing over each cut pastry piece and intertwining the pastry equally" is the best description I can come up with. I'm going to have to sort out videos to show these techniques eventually. For now, I have to use pictures.


Cut three long strands, 11" to 12" in length, of pastry, per pie.



Pinch the top pieces together, and begin braiding the pastry.


Once you are at the end, pinch the strands together and create a circle.



Pinch the edges of the circle together.

Wreath Look

Add a small strand of Pastry over the pinched area, and wrap the pastry over to cover the pinch.


If you are making a Wreath, leave the remainder of the strands for decoration, otherwise, trim them off with a sharp knife.









Place the circle over the Pie forms, and gently press them into position. don't press too hard as you will loose the shape of the braid.

For a little extra bit of decoration, I made a mini trinity knot or Shamrock if you will. They are so small, I can get away with calling them either one.

I took a small piece of Pastry and pinched out 3 leaves to emulate the look I wanted, then placed them at the top of the Pies.


The Individual Pies took 15 minutes in the oven but pull them out when they are a golden brown, and start checking them at the 12 minute mark.



These Pies are great as appetizers, for lunch ideas, or a quick bite if needed.


The "Family Style" version is pretty much double the ingredients of the above recipe, but instead of a "pinch" I used a 1/2 teaspoon of some of the ingredients, so I've listed it for you.



The Family Style Pie should give you 10 to 12 decent sized servings, or if you are using it as an appetizer, let it cool for a day, serve it cold, make 12 cuts width wise and and cut it down the centre,  for 24 portions.


You can let it sit on display to show off your braiding work, prior to cutting if you wish.







Irish Chicken Asparagus Pie - Family Style

1 Cup Chicken Meat, Pre-cooked, Chopped
1/2 Cup Asparagus Stems, Chopped
1 Medium Carrot, Grated
4 Slices Yellow Onion, Diced
16 Spinach Leaves and Stems
2 TSP Prepared Yellow Mustard
1 TSP Marjoram
1 TSP Tarragon
1/2 TSP Basil
1/2 TSP Cracked Black Pepper
1/2 TSP Salt
2 TBSPS Vegetable Stock
2 TBSPS Gruyere Cheese, Finely Grated (may be substituted with Parmesan or another salty Cheese)
2 TBSPS Mozzarella Cheese, Finely Grated.

1 Egg with 1 TSP Mustard - Whisked to brush the edges and pastry shells.

Stir the ingredients together, place back in the fridge until ready to use.

As per above, the lower portion of the dough will be smaller then the top portion, however, the rest of the steps are the same

Lower portion Pastry Sheet was 14" x 8"

Upper portion was 10" x 16"

Roll out your Dough, cut the pastry to shape.

Brush the lower sheet's edges with egg wash.

Add your filling.

Place the upper portion of dough over the ingredients and seal the edges.

Brush with egg wash.

Add the braid in one long strip down the centre, don't forget those vents!


Fold each corner up toward the centre of your pie and press them down.

Place on a baking sheet with Parchment Paper and bake at 375 F for 25 to 30 minutes.

This went over very well with my husband too, not just because of the taste, but because of the creativity that went into it.

I got a high five! I'm still laughing about that.

I am very happy with the results of both of the variations I made, and I am absolutely making this again. Today though, bread will be my focus... I made a batch yesterday, and the buns worked out, but the bread did not, I'm miffed about that, so will play with it once more to see if I can figure out what I did wrong.

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