Our Favourite Chicken Pie

The following is a somewhat rough guide to baking our favourite chicken pie. I say "rough" because I do not have precise proportions for the ingredients for the filling. The pie pastry recipe is, happily, more precise. I started baking this pie about 4 years ago and have baked, at times with the help of my dad and my husband, approximately more than 35 of them! They are usually well-received, and what follows is a recipe I typed out, on request, for our friends at Hamilton Square Baptist Church after we served them these pies as a farewell thanksgiving treat.

Ingredients (amount of each tailored to your own liking):
Chicken meat (I like to use thigh meat)
Cornflour (to keep the meat tender while cooking)
Oyster-flavored sauce (available at most major supermarkets such as Safeway and Albertson’s)
Pepper
(Garlic) salt
Parsley flakes (optional)
Potatoes
Peeled baby carrots (for greater convenience)
Onions (I used lots of this)
Canned clam chowder
Canned mushroom slices
Eggs
Butter, or margarine, or "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" (I used this)
1-2 cheese slices

Method:
1. Dice chicken meat, and marinate well with some oyster-flavored sauce (approx. 2 tablespoons per pie?), pepper and cornflour (about 1 tablespoon per pie?); cover and set aside in refrigerator to keep fresh as you prepare other ingredients
2. Dice potatoes and carrots, and begin boiling them in some water
3. Dice onions and sauté them in some ‘butter’ until they are rather soft
4. Add sautéed onions, chicken pieces, clam chowder and mushrooms to what feels like ¾ cooked potatoes and carrots (drained of excess water), and let them cook at medium-medium high for about 10 minutes more until chicken pieces are just cooked [I prefer to use fully cooked pie fillings to make sure that refrigerated, unbaked pies stay fresh for at least a day or two]
5. Taste, and add salt and pepper accordingly, if needed
6. Hardboil the eggs, dice them and mix, together with cheese, into the rest of the pie filling

Non-flaky Pie Pastry (for one 9 inch pie pan; still, just an estimate)

Ingredients:
Slightly more than 1½ cups plain flour
About 2/5 tsp salt
95g / about 3.4 oz combination of soft margarine and butter, just margarine, or "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter"
Maximum 2/5 cup cold water

Method:
1. Sift flour (unless using flour that does not need to be sifted) and salt into a bowl
2. Rub in 'butter' until mixture resembles coarse crumbs
3. Stir in enough water to bind, gather the dough into a ball and wrap in clear film
4. Chill for 20-30 mins. before rolling out thinly (or as preferred) on slightly flour-dusted surface, and covering slightly buttered pie pan [Spoon pie filling on to the bottom crust]
5. Poke some steam vents on top crust, and brush on some egg yolk, being careful not to clog up the vents.

Bake pie at 425 F for 10-15 mins., followed by another 25-40 mins. until golden at a reduced temperature of 350 F.