Home-comfort chicken and leek pie

Ingredients:
A little bit of oil
1 stick celery
1 small onion
1 carrot
chicken
salt and pepper
any other herbs you have loitering (thyme, sage, marjoram, whatever. Not rosemary as it's too strong)
a knob of butter
a spoonful or two of plain flour
milk or cream or creme fraiche - whatever you have lurking in the fridge.
Some leeks - say 2 or 3 depending on big they are
Some parsley if you have it - doesn't matter too much if not
Potatoes
Butter
Any left over cream or milk

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees or 160 if you've got a powerful fan oven.

Peel the potatoes and put in a pan of cold water with salt. Bring to the boil and cook them while you poach the chicken. Don't worry about over cooking as you're going to mash them anyway.

Chop up the celery, onion and carrot and sweat in oil on a low heat until soft. Don't take too much time about it.

Take some chicken - like a packet of legs or wings, or those bits which are bigger but still not very expensive. If feeling very fragile you can do with just breast. I'd get the ones with the skin on though, because I believe that gives the broth better flavour.

Once the vegetables are soft add the chicken and whatever herbs you've got and cover with water. Bring to the boil and then simmer on a low heat for about 15 mins, less if breast meat is used. You'll see the chicken poach quickly and just stop cooking when it's cooked through.

Take out the chicken (careful! Hot!), take off skin and chop into pie-size pieces. Keep the chicken stock for something else later.

Chop up the leeks crossways into little discs, as thinly as you like. Use as much of the leek as you can - I like the green flecks in the pie.

Next heat the butter in a pan and when melted add the flour, stir carefully, making sure it cooks nicely (smells like biscuits) but don't let it burn. Add the milk or cream or whatever and stir like crazy. Whisk if you need to get rid of lumps. Throw in the leeks and cook in the white sauce, adding more milk if you need to, for about 5 mins. They'll be cooked through I promise, but you have to stir them to stop the sauce burning. Add the chicken and some chopped up parsley if you have it, season with salt and pepper and put it in your pie dish.

The potatoes should be ready by now - if ready earlier, just drain and put back in the pan with the lid on to keep them hot. Mash them up with whatever you've got - butter, cream, a touch of milk (not too much) or my fave, creme fraiche. Add lots of pepper and some salt if needed.

Spread the mashed potatoes over the pie filling, spiking it up with a fork so that it catches and toasts nicely when cooking.

Cook it in the oven for about 45 mins.