Chicken, Lemon and Oregano Pie Cooked in a Frying Pan

I chose this pie mainly because I wanted something simple, and I couldn't have been more mistaken. I think I started around 18.15 (with the pastry already waiting in the fridge), managed to put the pie in the oven at 19.40, and finally had dinner at 20.30. Admittedly, it didn't help my humour that I spent the hour before deboning chicken thighs.

Midway through making the pie, I was afraid it was going to be a failure anyway. I've never made an Avgolemono sauce before, and I was quite suspicious at how liquid the sauce seemed. I whisked until it was foamy, but it only seemed to thicken minimally. Also the three lemons produced an enormous amount of juice, so I only used the juice of two and a bit.

The shortcrust pastry made me worry as well. Perhaps the second tbsp of water wasn't really necessary, but I added it anyway because the recipe said "2-3 tbsp water" - can you see the big red flag I see in retrospect? Always trust your instincts above the recipe! The pastry also might have been a bit too cold as it had been in the fridge for a few hours; it was very crumbly when I started to roll it out, but eventually, I was able to make a nice pastry pie lid.

Last, the pie had to bake 50 min instead of the required 25-30 min.

I found the resulting pie actually quite pleasing, although a bit too sour. DH was less happy; he thought it was just edible, though not much more than that, and way too sour (and think of it, I didn't even use the juice of all three lemons!). It probably would have helped to give the amount of lemon juice in ml. Also, he complained that the potatoes weren't fully cooked - this can probably be helped by cutting them into smaller pieces, cubes of 1 cm. The chicken, however, was very nice and tender - definitely use chicken thighs, and not filets!

Edited 3 May 2014: It seems we just can't win with this pie. We made it again, that is to say, DH made it this time while I attended to the Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble we had as dessert.

The potatoes seemed fully cooked this time, but we still wondered what they did in the pie at all, they just didn't seem to work as pie filling (though I'm sure there's some kind of classic something-and-potato-pie I don't know of). However, the sauce separated - no idea why that happened. DH used only the juice of half a lemon, and the zest of two whole ones, cut into strips - he thought it was still too sour, I actually thought it wasn't sour enough - just a tiny bit of zing to give it a proper lemony flavour. DH also complained that chicken and lemon don't go together - of course I don't agree. Maybe it's time to make a different dish with a proper avgolemono sauce. I used only 1 tbsp of water for the pastry, and while it was still crumbly, it made a good flaky crust.