Preheat oven to 220 degrees celcius

1 whole chicken (2kg)

3 sprigs rosemary

1/4 cup white wine

1 large leek (thinly sliced)

1 brown onion (diced)

1 tbl sp celery seeds

1 tbl sp dried thyme

400gm mushrooms (medium diced)

2 tbl plain flour

1 small bunch fresh sage (leaves, washed and finely diced)

1/2 cup white wine

1 cup chicken stock

1 bunch parsley (leaves, washed & rough chopped)

1 egg

250gm puff pastry (thawed, left in fridge to keep chilled)

1 tbl sp sesame seeds

Olive oil

Salt

Black pepper

Start by roasting the whole chicken. Lather it up in lots of oil, salt and cracked black pepper. Make sure to get into all the crevices. Shove rosemary into its butt, pour 1/4 cup white wine around the chicken so it has some liquid before popping it in the oven.

Cooking is as follows:

10 minutes at 220 degrees celsius

60 minutes at 180 degrees celsius

Whilst chicken is cooking…

Place pot on medium heat with a glug of oil. Sweat down onion and leek with salt for 8-10 minutes until soft, add in some oil more oil in the middle and add thyme and celery seeds to sizzle and mix through for a minute. Then add in the mushrooms and sear those off and mix through for the flour to cook out for a minute. Add sage and white wine and reduce until half liquid is gone, scraping the bottom to help deglaze. Add chicken stock and let simmer away until all liquid is gone. You really want a solid structure as we are going to use pan juices from the chicken to loosen.

Once chicken is cooked allow to rest and cool down so you can handle. Once cooled, remove skin and shred into pieces. Add shredded chicken, parsley and the juice from the tray the chicken was cooked in and mix together. The mixture still shouldn’t be too wet, if it remove some liquid from the top.

Add filling back into the tray and top with chopped pieces of puff pastry until its covered. Push pastry into the sides as it will shrink. Brush on whisked egg as an egg wash and finish with sesame seeds.

Add back into oven at 180 degrees Celsius and cook until golden brown on top.