Cooking for Pleasure: Chicken Pot Pie

Ingredients for a chicken pot pie. (Photo by Patty Schied)

By Patty Schied

Now that the weather is getting colder and wetter and the days are shorter, a chicken pot pie makes a lovely fall dinner. This recipe is easy to put together and can be made into individual servings or as one large pie, depending on your preference. It is your choice whether to just use a top crust or also a bottom crust. 

I made individual pies for a friend’s birthday lunch. There was enough filling for four small pies. I hadn’t made this in a while and forgot how good it was. Once you have eaten a homemade one, you will never want to eat one from the frozen food section of your grocery store ever again.

As with any recipe, it is the quality of ingredients that makes this pie delectable, so make sure your chicken or turkey tastes good. You can use roast chicken or one simmered in water for about an hour at low heat.  Although homemade chicken stock is best, there is no reason why you can’t use a high-quality canned broth.  If you are looking for a way to use leftover turkey, this is a great recipe. You can also add leftover gravy to the sauce.

There are two parts to this recipe: the filling and the sauce. It is the sauce that really makes this dish special.  When you taste it, you may wish just to eat it with a spoon; it is so good. But don’t sample too much of it, you will need it all for the filling.

Chopped mixture. (Photo by Patty Schied)

Ingredients: 

Pie dough for a one or two-crust pie

The filling:

2 – 3 cups of boned, skinned, and diced cooked chicken (or turkey)

1 celery stalk, cut into small dice

2 carrots, peeled and cut into small dice

1 cup of fresh mushrooms, sliced and cooked in a little butter

¼ cup very finely chopped parsley (big leaves get stuck in your teeth)

½  cup of frozen peas

Pie mixture with sauce. (Photo by Patty Schied)

The sauce:

1/3 cup of finely diced shallots (about one large shallot)

2 tablespoons of butter

2 tablespoons of flour

2 cups of rich chicken stock

½ cup heavy cream

1 tablespoon of sherry

Salt and pepper

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Mix filling ingredients in a large bowl. Set aside. Roll out pastry dough.

Gently cook shallots in butter until translucent. Add flour and stir to mix, cooking until the flour just starts to have a gold color. Gradually add chicken stock. Bring to a boil, stirring until thickened. Add heavy cream and sherry, stirring constantly. Taste for seasoning, adding salt and pepper as needed.

Remove from heat and stir into chicken mixture. Be sure to taste again for seasoning.

Pour mixture into a pastry-lined pie pan if doing a double crust. Otherwise, pour into individual ramekins, a pie pan, or a shallow casserole dish. Cover chicken mixture with crust. Cut slits in the crust to release steam.

Bake for about one hour at 400 degrees. After 30 minutes, check to see if the crust is browning too quickly and cover with aluminum foil, if necessary. If making individual pies, bake for approximately 35 to 45 minutes. (The crust for the individual pies will sink onto the filling. It still tastes great.)

Remove from oven and let rest for at least ten minutes. 

Serves four people generously.

• Patty Schied is a longtime Juneau resident who studied at the Cordon Bleu in London and has written a cookbook. Cooking For Pleasure appears every other week in the Juneau Independent's features. She welcomes questions about her column at patschied@yahoo.com.

Baked chicken pot pie. (Photo by Patty Schied)