A quick, easy way to make a delicious pie

I love pies but you can’t get away from the fact that they’re fiddly and time-consuming so here’s a neat idea for cutting the time they take by at least half and possibly trimming a few calories off the meal into the bargain.

All you need do is buy a pack of ready-rolled pastry, cut it into six - or eight - equal-sized pieces, glaze with beaten egg, prick lightly with a fork and bake in a pre-heated hot oven (225°C/425°F/Gas 7) for about 15 minutes until gloriously golden and puffy. (Turn down the heat a setting if the pastry looks as if it might burn) Then simply serve the lids you’ve created with a stew (which you could easily have made ahead and reheated while the pastry is cooking) or a simple saut.

Apart from the time saving - you no longer have to cool the filling, roll out the pastry to the exact size of your dish, knock up the edges and decorate the pie then cook the whole dish - the lack of moisture underneath the pastry and in the oven makes for a much crisper, flakier result. And if you’re making a pie filling from leftovers such as chicken or with par-cooked vegetables it means you don’t have to cook the filling as long which improves the taste and texture.You can also skip potatoes which will make you feel more virtuous about the whole enterprise!

The best pastry to use if you don’t make your own (and who does, these days?) is Dorset Pastry’s all-butter puff pastry (see their website for stockists) but Jus-Rol is perfectly good, if you can’t track it down.

I’ve made a couple of pies like this recently, a steak and kidney pie and a chicken and asparagus pie (pictured) but of course there’s no reason why you shouldn’t do it with fruit such as apples and plums, both particularly good at the moment. Just sift a little icing sugar over the pastry to dress it up and sweeten it a little.

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