Pastei

Directions

1. 1
   Mix the butter with an electric mixer or a wooden spoon. Keep adding little bits of the water until the butter has absorbed it all.
2. 2
   Sift the flour, baking powder and the salt all together and add this through the butter gradually. To see if the dough is rollable, press your finger on it and if the dough doesn't stick to it, it's fine. If the dough does stick however, add about 25 more grams of flour.
3. 3
   Rest pastry for 30mins in the fridge.
4. 4
   Break off about 1/4 of the pastry and reserve for the top of the pie.
5. 5
   Roll out the larger piece and put the flattened dough in a baking pan. Press the dough to the corners of the pan so that as much filling as possible can go inches
6. 6
   Saute the 1/2 the onion in about 100g butter add the chicken and brown slightly. Add the pepper and bay leaf 2 crumbled stock cubes and 1/2 tsp pimento. Cover with enough water and cook for about 30 minutes Cool slightly.
7. 7
   When cool enough to handle, remove the chicken from the liquid (reserve the liquid) and strip the chicken (discarding the bones) into little pieces.
8. 8
   Put the rest of the butter in the reserved liquid in which the chicken had been boiled.
9. 9
   Saute the remainder of the onion and oil in a pan. Add the chicken. After a minute add the chopped tomatoes and the peas and carrots and the remainder of the allspice.
10. 10
    Add the chicken broth to the pan and simmer until carrots slightly tender.
11. 11
    Add the chopped pickles. Check seasoning, and add if need be.
12. 12
    Cool to about luke warm. Or at this stage you can store in the fridge until the next day.
13. 13
    Preheat the oven to 375°C.
14. 14
    Fill the prepared pastry pan. Slice your cooked eggs and place them on top of the filling in the pan.
15. 15
    Roll out the remaining pastry and place gently ontop, sealing the edges with some water and pressing the pastry closed. Slit a couple of steam vents in the pastry.
16. 16
    Bake for 1 hour. Take out of oven and brush with beaten egg and bake a further 10mins or so to give it a nice finish.