[Koukouvagia]

Any good recipes out there? Looking to make a good one eventhough I've never tasted it or made it before.

[Gunnar]

it's both easy and delicious


first make a basic chicken soup- brown up some chicken (I use a mix of breast and thigh) in some nice bite size chunks add potatoes, carrots, celery, onion, garlic, tarragon, thyme, broth, salt and pepper. let simmer a bit and then add either a roux or a flour and water (or cornstarch) slurry to thicken. once thickened add peas at this stage or they tend to overcook while tenderizing up the carrots and potato.

some people say that a chicken pot pie needs both a bottom and a top crust, I usually just have a top crust. do what ya want.

you will want to ladle some stew into an oven proof bowl, then lay your pie crust over and crimp along the sides of the bowl. egg wash and bake till crust looks delicious. the bowls should be the right size to each be a single serving.

best of luck

[OahuAmateurChef]

Thanks for that chicken pot pie filling recipe. I made a gallon of chicken soup yesterday and it is more than the two of us can consume. What a perfect inspiration.

I can't believe anybody in NY has never had chicken pot pie before. But then my ku'uipo tasted French fries for the first time in her life when she was about 16, so I guess that kind of thing is more common than I realize.

[Koukouvagia]

Thanks for the recipe, sounds easy enough. But what kind of pie crust should I use - buttery?

It has never appealed to me much, not that there wasn't opportunity for it. I'm sure it will be very tasty.

[Gunnar]

honestly, either a standard pie crust or a puff pastry dough will work fine. Possibly even philo, though i don't know as I have never tried it. I would think it would be flaky deliciousness and a pain in the butt. forgot to say, pierce some holes in a little triangle like pattern in the center of the top crust or steam can blow your top off

best o' luck

[Dillbert]

being an x-Philadelphian, chicken pot pie precedes McDonalds....

I've had the rottenest luck getting the consistency right, so I've come up with my own method:

whole chicken, cut up, poached with flavor - varies - celery seed, baby leaf, s&p, pepper flakes, diced onion, smashed garlic, <pick your favorites>

reserve the poaching liquid, make a thin roux, add chopped celery, chopped carrots, frozen peas. add cut up / chunkified poached chicken.
(I've been known to sneak in turnips, parsnips, leeks, green pepper, red pepper, onion....)
adjust sauce thickness - needs to be runnier than you thunk.

blind bake bottom crust (it's certainly required in Philadelphia....)
I use h/m pie crust, I use puff pastry, I use phyllo. heh, I'm easy to please.

after the blind bake, add the perfectly adjusted for consistency chicken yummies.
top with a round cut to size as a top crust; slit, egg wash if you gottum.
a sprinkle of ultra coarse sea salt ain't too bad.
bake to a nice color.

[Gunnar]

yeah whenever i make em without a bottom crust, i can't tell my mom i made any. She loves em but insists it's not the real deal without a bottom crust.

[siduri]

Dear Koukouvagia
I have to intervene - please use a biscuit crust.!!! It's wonderful, and completes the "comfort food" nature of the dish. You can get any easy biscuit recipe from any cookbook - rub cold butter (and/or or lard) into flour mixed with baking powder (or soda if you use buttermilk or yoghurt) and salt and i like a tsp of sugar in it too. Add milk or buttermilk (or yoghurt). I can look up thye recipe tonight if you need one. Sometimes i add chopped chives just for interest.

I also often do a fancy version of the pie filling, sauteeing sliced mushrooms with a pinch of thyme in butter first, remove, then sautee onion, celery, optional carrot in more butter, add flour when tender, then chicken broth and juice exuded from the mushrooms if you use them, and make your veloute' with that. Cut up the chicken and add it with the mushrooms (the best tasting pie is made with roast chicken, but soup chicken is good too, esp if you took the meat out early enough so it didn;t fall apart too much or got too waterlogged, but hey, chicken pie is always a treat anyway!).

Some recipes call for cream with the broth - i usually don;t have cream handy but it does taste good. I put frozen peas in at the very last minute as i'm about to put it in the baking dish since they only need to heat up, not cook.
I occasionally put in some corn. I like the crunch.
When my daughter and son in law (both vegetarians) visit, i'd make another one for them, all the same ingredients but chick peas for the chicken and veg broth for the broth, and corn and peas and mushrooms and all the rest. It was not bad!

Anyway, mix it together and pour into your baking dish. Make the biscuit dough and roll out to a finger's height and lay on top. Brush with milk. A few slits in a circle on top look nice. Bake till browned.

The biscuit absorbs some of the sauce, but leaves most, and it functions as bread. And fills the mouth in that way that comfort food is supposed to do!

[Koukouvagia]

Siduri, you had me at the word butter.

I'd love a biscuit recipe, I'm new to baking, especially pie crusts so I need all the help I can get. To tell you the truth I was going to used roasted chicken instead of poached anyway . Hubby doesn't like mushrooms but that sounds perfect to me! Thanks for intervening.

[ED BUCHANAN]

Originally Posted by Koukouvagia

Siduri, you had me at the word butter.

I'd love a biscuit recipe, I'm new to baking, especially pie crusts so I need all the help I can get. To tell you the truth I was going to used roasted chicken instead of poached anyway . Hubby doesn't like mushrooms but that sounds perfect to me! Thanks for intervening.

If its a pie then a pie crust. if its a biscuit dough then chicken with dumplings. Sure we can all custom and change it but even Fanny Farmer uses pie dough. Some places simply make a chichen stew and put in cassarole, and lay a puff paste pre baked lid on it. Everybody to their own devices. Thats what makes cooking great

[siduri]

Originally Posted by ED BUCHANAN

If its a pie then a pie crust. if its a biscuit dough then chicken with dumplings.

Nope, not chicken and dumplings. This may be a boston local specialty, i don;t know.
But this is a top crust, that is laid on top like a pie crust, and the pie (or "pie") is baked like a pie in the oven, it's not like dumplings, which are dropped on top of the stew in a pot and the stew is covered so they sort of steam.
It's possible that it might be called "chicken and biscuits" somewhere, but "biscuits" is plural and this is a single top crust, no way you would use the plural.

Anyway, the other day i made a recipe for what they said was autnentic english fish pie and it had a mashed potato crust. Also shepherd's pie has mashed potatoes. Some pies have puff pastry crusts, no? and I've made savory pies with olive oil crust. I think pie means something in a shallow baking dish with a crust, on top, on the bottom or both. But i guess you can define things however you want.

Maybe, Ed, we could use the term for that fruit pie with a biscuit crust, what is it, a "buckle"? it could be a chicken buckle? "Chicken pot buckle".

Anyway, whatever. As you say, it's good, that's what matters.

[Penguin]

I too prefer my chicken pot pie with a biscuit crust. I make my sauce pretty thin as the biscuits absorb a lot of the sauce. It's great right out of the oven, but amazing the next day.

[LuvPie]

I love chicken pot pies but moreover so does my husband.
They're good and earthy and so satisfying.
Reserve a lot of gravy as it can soak up in the filling and be dry.
Also, what I tried and thought had a good result, was
brushing the raw dough with the best quality you can find of bottled italian salad dressing. Not a lot, just maybe a tablespoon of it brushed on with a pastry brush all over the top. It glistened and the flavor was subtle and added interest
I must agree with the typical pie dough shell on top.
You can play with it if you want to also.
To the dough you can add dill weed or a bit of thyme or for crunch sesame seeds or flax seeds.

[siduri]

Ok, Koukouvagia, I can give you the biscuit recipe.
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1/4 or a little more cold butter sliced in small pieces (but cold)
2/3 cup buttermilk or yoghurt

If you're not comfortable yet with baking and rubbing butter into pastry dough, you might want to cool all the dry ingredients and bowl first, but i don;t imagine you'll have much trouble. The principle to keep in mind is not to melt the butter.

Put dry ingredients and butter in a bowl

By hand: rub with fingertips (not with whole hand, not to warm the butter) so that the butteris broken down and coated with flour, and the mixture resembles oatmeal.
By machine: Mix it on low till the butter and flour are crumbly and like oatmeal. Don't mix too long or it will melt the butter. The principle is to get small pieces of cold butter surrounded by flour, so that in baking the butter will melt and leave little flakey layers.

Do the next step by hand: add the buttermilk or yoghurt, and sort of toss it, so it all gets wet. Knead very lightly in the bowl, just to make it like a dough, not to develop gluten. It should look soft and homogeneous. You might need more or less liquid or flour. It should hold together.
Roll or pat out on a floured surface so it's about a finger thick and lift on top of the pie pan.
brush with milk, make some cute slits, and that's it.
Bake about 450 for biscuits, but I'd say also for the pie. Your filling is cooked and hot anyway.

It's pretty hard to go wrong here, i've made it without even measuring, just by eye. A very forgiving recipe.

If you have leftovers, you can bake on a baking sheet with the pie, and eat them separately. Yes, you can put more butter on them, and they are really nice. Just watch them because they'll cook faster.

Cooks illustrated has an even easier recipe that comes out ok, made with cream and no butter. It's more foolproof, you can probably find it online.
This one I gave you is from (dare i say it) the old betty crocker cookbook from the 1950s. A great source for american traditional dishes and truly foolproof cakes. (It's got a great tomato soup recipe that makes you realize what campbells was trying to do). Oh, and it, too, suggests biscuit crust for chicken pie - as well as pie crust, "if you prefer"

[Koukouvagia]

Originally Posted by siduri

Ok, Koukouvagia, I can give you the biscuit recipe.
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1/4 or a little more cold butter sliced in small pieces (but cold)
2/3 cup buttermilk or yoghurt

Thanks, I'll give it a try soon. How much butter did you say?