Chicken pot pie (no, you can't smoke it)

Herewith is yours truly's very first attempt at chicken pot pie. If it isn't worth a gold medal, it's at least a silver. I won't take too much credit for it, I did follow a recipe more or less (those who know me know how rare it is for me to follow anything). One thing that attracted me to this particular plan was that it calls for two crusts. The addition of potatoes was my idea, the cooked chicken thigh meat was leftovers from the weekend (it could be cooked chicken breast if you are blackmailed into only buying that), the crusts were Pillsbury, the patting on the back - totally my own. I did the preparations in my own way to make it as simple as possible. (My favorite song is "I did it my way" by you-know-who.)

Chicken pot pie
2 supermarket pie crusts
1 3/4 cups chicken broth
1 medium potato, cut into 1/2 inch cubes or smaller
1 medium carrot, same size as the potato
1 stalk celery, chopped
1/2 medium onion, chopped
1 cup frozen peas
salt and pepper to taste
celery seed to taste
1/3 cup butter
1/3 cup AP flour
2/3 cups milk

Place one pie crust in the bottom of a deep 9-inch pie pan. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
Place the chicken stock in a large saute pan along with the potato, carrot, celery, onion, salt, pepper and celery seed. Bring to a simmer and cook maybe 10 minutes until the carrots are tender. Remove to a bowl and add in the peas. Pour the broth into a measuring cup and add more to it to come up to 1 3/4 cups.
Melt the butter over medium heat. Whisk in the flour and continue whisking while it cooks for 2 minutes. Whisk in the broth and milk. Bring to a simmer and keep stirring until it thickens.
Place the vegetables in the pie pan. Pour the gravy over the top. Stir it a bit carefully to get the gravy to merge down into the veggies.
Cover with the other pie crust and pinch the edges together. Cut a few slits in the crust to allow steam to escape.
Bake for 30-35 minutes until the crust is brown and all else is bubbling.
Let it sit for 10 minutes to avoid pizza mouth. Serve with a nice salad.

Chicken pot NOT

I’ve been thinking about chicken pot pie for a while. I downloaded a recipe mostly because it was a two crust version, whereas, most of the time, there’s just a crust on the top.

Yesterday, having been CFTBD (cook for the boys day), was the perfect opportunity. I’ve been cooking a chicken in the pressure cooker for the “boys” (read “dogs”) for the better part of two years. I save either the breast portion or the legs and thighs for Peter and me. While pressure cooking is time-efficient, it is a bit unpredictable in terms of the outcome.

Depending on how much of the chicken is frozen (yes, even though the bird is in the refrigerator case, the store keeps the temperature so low that much of it is hard as a carp), one has to determine the proper cooking time. Generally speaking 12-15 minutes with the rocker rocking does the trick and you just run cold water over the cooker to drop the pressure.

However, breast meat done in the pressure cooker is hard to get ‘just right.’

So…I’ve started poaching the chicken after disassembling it into its component parts. There are two upsides to this: you can get wonderfully delicate breast meat; you get a larger amount of stock.

So…back to the pot pie. I decided I wanted to make it. Then I realized we had just had two consecutive meals with bisquick involved and the starch of a two-crust chicken pie was a turn-off. Hence the recipe below; no crust – just what you would expect to be in a chicken pot pie. I call it:

Chicken pot NOT
1 whole chicken breast
3 tbsp butter
1 tbsp olive oil
½ cup celery, diced
½ onion, sliced
¾ cup mixed bell pepper strips
1 large carrot, cut into 1/8” rounds
8 oz. mushrooms, sliced
3 garlic cloves, pressed or minced
½ tsp dried thyme
½ tsp dried oregano
½ tsp dried tarragon
½ tsp red pepper flakes
3 tbsp flour
2 cups chicken broth
1 cup baby spinach leaves

Cut two slices into the chicken breast, one in the middle and the other near the neck end. Cut all the way down to the bone.

Place the breast into a pot and cover with water. Bring the water to a simmer and reduce the heat to a gently bubble and poach for 30 minutes. Remove the chicken to a cutting board to cool.

When it’s cool, remove the skin and pull the breast meat off the bone and shred it with your hands. Set aside.

Heat a large sauté pan over medium heat. Add the butter and oil. When the butter is melted, add
Onion, garlic, pepper strips, carrot, celery, and mushrooms. Cook until the onions are softened but not browned, about 10 minutes. Add the stock and bring to a simmer. Cook until the vegetables are softened but still retain some texture, 8-10 minutes.

Add the herbs and the flour and the chicken. Bring back to a strong simmer and cook until thickened to a gravy-like texture.

Serve over perfectly cooked (as Peter will do) basmati rice which you have topped with baby spinach leaves.

For a free excerpt of my book, “A Year of Food,” in which I opine, report, cook, muse and philosophize about everything that passed my lips for an entire year, write to me at: scrout1944@msn.com.