One of the dishes I learned to make from mom is chicken pot pie. It's an amazing thing. Just truly awesome. And, while there are a lot of steps and time involved in its creation, the recipe itself is very forgiving.
So, without further ado, chicken pot pie!
Ingredients
- Chicken (5 thighs)
- Pie Crusts (enough to cover your pie container and to cover the top of the pie - 4 9" crusts should do the trick, depending on your cooking vessel)
- Chicken Bouillon (2 cubes)
- Chicken Broth (1 carton, give or take)
- Potatoes (2, red ones are awesome)
- Carrots (2, medium-large)
- Onion (1, small-medium)
- Celery (2 stalks)
- Kosher Salt
- Black Pepper
- Marjoram (Fresh or not)
- Thyme (ground)
- All-Purpose Flour
This is one of those recipes that my mom makes that has no real measurements or times or whatnot. You just kind of do it by feel. That said, while there are a lot of steps involved, it's not that difficult to make, and it's kind of hard to screw up.
The first thing you want to do is to start prepping your vegetables. Using red potatoes is awesome, because you can leave the skin on and they taste delicious. Cut them into small pieces, like home-fry sized -- bite sized I guess, maybe two-bites. Chop the celery and the onion into small pieces, they're in for flavor and will cook down to not much.. as for the carrots, smallish pieces. Really, all of this is up to your personal preference. Hell, you can use whatever vegetables you want... but the potato + carrots + celery + onion combo is my mom's preference.
Alright, start boiling your vegetables in the chicken broth, use enough to cover them. This is going to make them wonderfully chicken flavored. At the same time, boil the chicken in water in a separate vessel, along with two bullion cubes. When your chicken is cooked through, remove to a draining vessel (colander works here) and let it cool a bit -- do not get rid of the liquid you cooked the chicken in, you'll need it. It may have some crap on the top, just skim it off.
You'll want to have the chicken cool enough to handle, as you need to remove the skin, nasty bits, and bones. Once that is done, shred it to suit your liking (big chunks are fine, shredded shredded is fine -- whatever texture you like).
So your veggies are done and your chicken is prepped. Good! Dump the chicken into the veggie pot. You'll want to add flour to thicken the mixture, as well as salt, pepper, and thyme to taste. You want the mixture to be thick, but you do not want it to taste like flour. So you'll probably need to add more chickeny goodness -- this is accomplished by adding the reserved liquid that you cooked the chicken in, in order to achieve the perfect balance between thickness and tastiness. Once you have your mixture perfectly balanced and seasoned, add the chopped fresh marjoram, this will put it over the top -- but don't add it until you're pretty much done, as fresh herbs can get all wilty when they get cooked too long.
So your filling is done. Great! Now you need to make it into a pie. You'll want to grease your pie cooking vessel a bit -- we used vegetable shortening and a 12" cast iron skillet. I underbought on pie crusts a bit, so we didn't have enough to cover the pie completely on the top. This is a mistake you should not make. Buy more pie crust then you need, or make your own pie crust (unfortunately, kitchen de la Jim does not really give me the space needed to make a crust). Also, I bought generic -- Elisa said it might be easier to work with if you buy the real brand... you know, the one with the little demonic chef blob who likes to have his belly poked.
Anyhoo, we made a lattice top for our pie. Pretty:
Looking good? Great! I hope you preheated your oven to 350 degrees. Done? Good. Put the pie in the oven for 40 minutes, or until the crust pretty and golden brown (had we a full top, brushing on an egg wash would make things even prettier). When it's done, it'll look like this:
Let it rest a bit before slicing. And then slice, and enjoy:
