Chicken, Ham & Pecan Crumble

I hope you all had a good Christmas, ours was a bit different this year as it was just the two of us. Originally I wanted to be in France this year but the flights were too expensive which is why I was there a couple of weeks ago instead. The second plan was for both of us to go to Plymouth and spend Christmas with my boyfriend's family, but then he was told he would have to work on Boxing Day and as we don't have a car we wouldn't have been able to get back. We then planned to go to Plymouth just for the day on Christmas Eve, but due to the flooding we didn't want to risk getting stuck somewhere or the trains not running properly on the way home. So in the end it was just the two of us here in Reading. It made quite a nice change actually as we got up late, ate a big roast dinner then flopped on the sofa for the evening. I still got roped into cooking a full Christmas roast but we had already decided to buy a big chicken instead of a small turkey or turkey crown. We managed to get a 2.7 kg chicken in the reduced price section at the supermarket for £5, massive for two people but I like having lots of leftovers to play with. We also bought a 2 kg gammon joint as well which I boiled (got loads of stock in the freezer now) and roasted, no chance of running out of ham for a while! Normally I would have made a pie with the leftovers but I fancied doing something different this time so I made a savoury crumble topping with oats and chopped pecans.

My boyfriend bought me this Le Creuset star shaped dish for Christmas last year. I saw it on the Achica website last year and had to have it. I haven't seen them anywhere else so they must have been a limited edition. We hosted Christmas last year for his family and I cooked an apple and mincemeat pie in it then as a second dessert because my boyfriend doesn't like Christmas pudding. I wanted an excuse to use it during the festive season this year so that's why I used it for this crumble.

 

The best thing about this recipe is that you can use whatever you have left and substitute the ingredients depending on what you have in your fridge. I had some leftover cranberry sauce, I made my own using this recipe from Good Food magazine and also some leftover chestnuts from a sausagemeat stuffing that I made for Christmas Day, recipe also from Good Food. So I chucked them in along with some celeriac as well although you could use any root vegetable really. 

Ingredients - serves 5-6

For the filling:

2-3 tbsp sunflower oil

1 large leek, cleaned, trimmed and thinly sliced

approx 300g celeriac (peeled weight), cut into small chunks

2 potatoes, peeled and cut into small chunks

200g cooked ham, diced

200g cooked chicken, shredded (I used thigh & drumstick meat)

4 vac packed cooked chestnuts, chopped

2 tbsp cranberry sauce

1 tbsp fresh sage, finely chopped

1 tbsp plain flour 

500ml ham stock or chicken stock

 

For the topping:

150g pecans, chopped

50g salted butter

2 heaped tbsp porridge oats

• In a large saucepan heat the oil and gently cook the leek over a medium-low heat for around 5 minutes until softened but don't let it colour. Then add the celeriac and potatoes and cook for a further 3 minutes, stirring regularly. Add the sage followed by the flour and stir until the flour is absorbed (this will help the sauce thicken), pour over the stock and then add the ham, chicken, chestnuts and cranberry sauce. Bring to the boil and then simmer for 25 minutes or until the potatoes are tender, season to taste although you probably won't need any salt due to the saltiness of the stock and the ham. 
• Meanwhile preheat the oven to 200C and prepare the topping. Melt the butter in a small saucepan and then stir through the oats and pecans and leave to cool. 
• When the filling is cooked spoon it into a large pie dish (I actually made too much filling for my star dish although it should all fit in a sensible shaped dish!) and sprinkle the crumble topping over. Bake for 15-20 minutes until the filling is bubbling and the topping is caramelised. Serve with green vegetables. 

I'm linking this up with the No Waste Food Challenge hosted by Kate at Turquoise Lemons and into Herbs on Saturday hosted by Karen at Lavender & Lovage.