Chicken Pot Pie

I went to the grocery on Tuesday to stock up on a few items because snow was predicted for today in Memphis, and goodness knows that Memphians completely lose track of their senses when they think there is going to be weather. I successfully avoided the snow crowds at the grocery (don't get me started on the midtown Schnuck's) and made it home with my fryer, intended for Zuni chicken, one of our favorite dinners. Chad came home for lunch, however, and casually mentioned that he might like to have chicken pot pie sometime (picture light bulb over head), so I decided to go with that. Aren't I just a good little wife?

The sauce for this recipe starts with bacon. Bacon makes everything good. I used the drippings from the bacon to cook the vegetables, then added flour to thicken the sauce, which was eventually made from the fryer I got- a carrot, half an onion, a few cloves of garlic, a rib of celery, some peppercorns and water to cover, cooked for a couple of hours=stock and boiled chicken. Two birds, one stone! No pun intended. Anyway there was only one bird, but I digress. Added the stock to the flour and vegetables, thickened with a buerre manie (pronounced burr monyay) and topped with pastry...voila! Chicken pot pie!

I used only a top crust, and I think it was just the right amount of pastry for this recipe. You could certainly do a bottom crust if you like, just double the recipe for the pastry and blind bake the bottom crust.

Shortcuts: use canned stock and store-bought pie dough (gasp!). On pie crust: if you have a food processor, it really is easy. Just have your ingredients measured out before you begin. You'll feel like a pro in no time. You can use all butter if you are queasy about shortening- the shortening just makes the crust easier to deal with.

Chicken Pot Pie

for the stock:
1 whole chicken
1 carrot, broken in half
1 rib celery, broken in half
1/2 onion (you don't even have to peel it!)
3 peppercorns
1 bay leaf
3 cloves garlic, smashed
salt to taste

for the pastry:
1 1/2 cups flour
1/4 cup shortening, cold and cut into pieces
1/4 cup butter, cold and cut into pieces
1/4 cup cold water
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar

for the filling:
3 slices bacon
1/2 onion, chopped
1 rib celery, chopped
2 carrots, cut diagonally into 1-inch chunks
2 tablespoons flour + 2 more tablespoons for the buerre manie
3 cups chicken stock, warm
2 tablespoons butter, at room temperature
1 cup frozen peas
salt and pepper to taste

egg wash made with one egg yolk and a tablespoon of water

First make the stock. Place the first 7 ingredients in a large pot and fill with water to cover. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer for a couple of hours. Season to taste with salt. Strain the stock through a sieve and discard all except the chicken. Take the meat off of the chicken bones and set aside 2 cups for the pot pie. Save any extra meat for chicken salad!

Make the pastry: In a food processor, pulse the flour and salt and sugar to combine. Scatter the butter and shortening over the flour mixture and pulse a few times until it looks like coarse meal. With the motor running, add the cold water and process until the crust starts to pull away from the sides of the bowl. Take the dough out and press it into a disk and wrap in plastic wrap, then let it rest in the fridge for an hour.

Make the filling: In a large saute pan over medium-high heat, cook the bacon until just crispy. Remove to a paper-towel-lined plate and let drain. Chop the bacon when it is drained. In the meantime, cook the onion and celery in the bacon drippings until softened. Add the carrots and cook for a couple of minutes more. Sprinkle two tablespoons of the flour over the cooked vegetables and stir to coat the vegetables. Add the warm stock and stir to combine. Let the remaining stock cool off a little and then pour into ziplocks to store in the freezer for future use.

Using a fork, combine the remaining two tablespoons of flour with the softened butter to make a buerre manie. Stir the buerre manie into the sauce and bring to a boil, cook until thickened. Add the frozen peas and the chicken. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Pour the mixture into a pie pan.

Use a rolling pin to roll out the pastry into a circle just slightly larger than your pie pan. Roll the crust onto the pin and unroll it over your pie pan. Crimp the edges of the pastry onto the pie pan. Brush the pastry with the egg wash and cut a few slits in the center of the pastry to allow the steam to vent.

Bake for about thirty minutes, until the pastry is golden brown. Check your pie about halfway through. If your edges start to get too brown before the center of the pastry is done, cover them with tin foil.

Let the pie rest for about ten minutes before cutting into it. Enjoy!