LAWRENCE MURPHY: Chicken and mushroom pie

Reversing a trailer can be a difficult skill to acquire without the right person showing you how it's done '“ and it seems perfect pastry requires the same amount of teaching.

My wife needed to be shown how to reverse a trailer by Dave, and his wife Debbie was sure her pastry skills would be enhanced by a certain chef she knows.

So this week Debbie came to my kitchen to learn how to make pastry, both sweet and savoury, while Dave helped my wife reverse around an empty car park with a trailer attached to the car.

Sweet pastry for a fruit tart and shortcrust pastry for a fantastic chicken and mushroom pie were the skills I would show our friend so she would leave confident to make pastry on her own.

Is a pie more about the pastry or the filling?

In my world they should both complement each other.

The pastry should be short and buttery and the filling rich, creamy and fulfilling.