MAISON DE KENNEDY

Shawn's Butter Chicken Mini Pies

🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍 (0/5) Tested by Cass — 1 hr 20 min · Makes 8–12 pies

Not made these yet — no rating.

NZ gas-station nostalgia, done properly. Jarred butter chicken sauce upgraded with slow-jammed onion, real ginger, butter, cream and a proper heat dial, reduced thick and sealed in flaky pastry in a muffin tin. The jar carries the shape; the upgrades carry the depth.

Ingredients

Filling

• 1 jar Butter Chicken Simmer Sauce
• 1 lb Chicken Thighs — cubed
• 1 medium Yellow Onion — fine dice
• 2 cloves Garlic — minced
• 1 tsp Fresh Ginger — grated
• 3 tbsp Butter — split
• ½ cup Heavy Cream
• 1–2 tsp Sugar — the NZ-pie sweetness
• 1 tsp Garam Masala
• ½ tsp Kashmiri Chilli Powder — for colour
• ½ tsp Cayenne Pepper — see heat dial in notes
• Squeeze Lemon or Lime — to finish
• Salt & Pepper

Pastry & Finishing

• 1 pkg Frozen Flaky Pastry — thawed
• 1 Egg — beaten, for wash
• Butter or Oil — for the muffin tin

Method

1. Jam the onion: 2 tbsp butter in a wide pan over medium-low. Diced onion plus a pinch of salt, sweated slowly 10–12 minutes until soft and barely golden at the edges. Almost jammy. Patience here means no raw-onion bite in the pies.
2. Garlic and ginger: Stir in, 1 minute until fragrant.
3. Sear the chicken: Push everything aside, heat to medium-high, add the remaining 1 tbsp butter and the cubed thighs. Season lightly and sear 2–3 minutes just for colour — don't cook through.
4. Sauce in: Pour the jar over, scrape the fond, bring to a simmer.
5. Reduce it thick: Stir in cream, sugar, garam masala, kashmiri chilli and cayenne. Simmer 15–20 minutes until the chicken is cooked and the sauce is thick — spoonable, not pourable. Watery filling means soggy pies.
6. Finish off heat: Squeeze of lemon or lime, taste, adjust salt.
7. Cool completely before assembling — spread on a tray to speed it up. Hot filling melts the pastry butter and you lose the flake.
8. Prep the tin: Oven to 220°C / 425°F, grease a 12-cup muffin tin.
9. Cut bases: Roll the pastry to ~3 mm. Cut circles about 1 cm wider than the muffin cup opening and press into the cups so the pastry comes up the sides.
10. Cut lids the same diameter as the top of the cup.
11. Fill: Heap the cooled filling into the bases without overflowing.
12. Seal: Egg wash the rim of each base, lay the lid on, press the edges together and crimp with a fork.
13. Vent and glaze: Small steam slit in each lid, then egg wash the tops.
14. Bake 22–28 minutes until deeply golden and properly flaky.
15. Rest 5 minutes in the tin before lifting out. They're saucy and need a moment to settle.

Notes

• Heat dial (cayenne, one-jar batch): ¼ tsp mild-medium, ½ tsp proper medium and Shawn's target, ¾ tsp medium-hot. Add it with the cream and other spices so it blooms. Cream tames heat — what tastes spicy raw lands milder after the simmer.
• The thick reduction is the whole game. Pie filling must be spoonable, not pourable. This is the main difference from the over-rice version, which stays deliberately loose.
• The cheat-jar upgrades, in order of impact: jam the onion down low and slow; fresh ginger and garlic, because the jar never has enough ginger; butter and cream for lushness; a pinch of sugar for the Kiwi-pie sweetness; garam masala for fresh top-note spice; kashmiri chilli for colour; cayenne for actual heat; lemon or lime at the end to brighten.
• Make extras: assemble unbaked, freeze on a tray, then bag. Bake straight from frozen at 400°F for 35–40 minutes. Gas-station-pie texture, zero gas station.

Spice Substitutes

• No garam masala? A tiny pinch each of cinnamon, cumin, clove, cardamom and black pepper — or skip it, the jar has its own backbone.
• No kashmiri chilli? Sweet paprika with a microscopic pinch of cayenne. Mostly for colour anyway.
• No cayenne? Red chilli flakes, ½ to 1 tsp, crushed between your palms.

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