Chicken pot pie

 

For the 4th day in the spring cooking series, today’s recipe is chicken pot pie! Above are how mines turned out.

Before creating my own recipe, I looked over a sur la table recipe I learned on how to make chicken pot pie and compared it to a bunch of other recipes online and adjusted measurements, add a few things here and there and now I have my own recipe!

What I really like about chicken pot pies is the nice and creamy filling hiding inside the pie crust. When adding milk to make the veggies and chicken creamy, you have to remember to cook it well enough until the vegetables and chicken absorbs the milk and broth and a gravy is formed.

You can use any vegetables you want! Some people use garlic but…. I don’t prefer it. Also, many people like to add the raw chicken breast pieces into the broth and veggies and let the chicken cook in with the mixture but the truth is, you should always cook the chicken first before adding it in. It never cooks proper with the broth and veggies and takes a long time so your better off cooking the chicken first and then adding it in.

Recipe for the pie crust used can be found on this link of my pie crust post:  https://bakedtothebone.wordpress.com/2016/03/29/perfect-pie-dough/

Without further ado, chicken pot pie:

Yields 2 pot pies

Ingredients:

• 1 pound mixed vegetables (corn, broccoli, etc)
• 2 medium potatoes
• 1 yellow onion
• 1 large carrot
• 1 cup vegetable broth
• 1 cup regular milk
• Honey
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• Parsley flakes
• 1 recipe perfect pie crust
• Cayenne pepper powder
• 3 tablespoons all purpose flour
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 pound diced and cubed chicken breast
• Salt and pepper

1. Flour a work surface and roll out pie crust dough. Season with cayenne pepper for spice, knead for a little while and roll out with rolling pin until it can fit the pie pan

  

2. Gently grab rolled pie dough, make sure it isn’t too thin, and place over pie pan. Using kitchen shears, cut off any excess pie dough from around the pan and using a fork, press down the dough against the pan until the sides are properly covered.

  

Once pie crust dough is properly adjusted to the pan, set aside

3. Over medium heat in a skillet, add some oil. Once the oil is hot, add in your raw diced chicken breast. Make sure they are cut into little cube and bite size pieces.

  

4. Add garlic powder, salt, and pepper to the chicken. Cook until the chicken breast is nice and white. Once cooked, set aside.

  

5. Now that we have our chicken cooked, lets begin to slice our vegetables. On a cutting board, dice potatoes into cubes and chop the onion and carrot into small pieces.

  

  

6. Once the potatoes, carrot, and onion are nice and diced as shown above, set aside plate. Place a saute pan over medium heat and add olive oil and chopped vegetables and saute for 5 minutes until the potatoes are tender

 

7. Once potatoes are tender, add your thawed package of mixed vegetables into the pan and season with black pepper and add in the three tablespoons of butter and stir until butter melts

 

8. Once the butter melts, add vegetable broth to the pan, season vegetables with parsley flakes and stir once again

  

People usually get surprised when they know I add honey into my pot pies but it’s kind of my secret ingredients. Drizzle some honey onto the vegetables to give a sweet flavor. But not too much! At this point your vegetables should be nice and steamed and the vegetable broth should be sizzling

 

9. Once broth is sizzling and vegetables are tender, add milk and flour and stir.

  

10. Add some cayenne pepper on top of the vegetables (you can add as much as you want but I like to put alot because I prefer my food spicy). Toss in the cooked chicken and give the mixture a nice stir

  

Cover the pan with a lid and let the saute pan sit for 5 minutes to let the chicken and vegetables absorb the milk

11. When you remove the lid, the milk should be very thick like gravy. If the milk is still in a very liquid form, add more flour and let sit for another minute. It’s urgent your milk and broth should be very thick and chunky before adding mixture into the pie. Add half of the vegetable and chicken mixture into the pie pan. There’s a lot so you can pull of a second pie!

   

12. Roll out remaining dough and cover the top of the pie, adjust the sides with your fingers and cut off any excess dough. Using a knife, cut a X onto the pie so the hole can ventilate the heat from inside the pie. Using a pastry brush, egg wash the top of the pie with whisked egg yolk.

 

 

Bake the pie at 350 degrees for 25 minutes until the crust is golden brown.

Here’s how mines came out of the oven, I even decided to make a second pie using some of the left over vegetable mix, the picture on the right is the second pie.

  

Summary:

Pot pie are best ate hot! the best part I love about eating these pies is that when you take your fork or spoons and cut out a pieces, there’s nice and creamy vegetable filling pouring out. Here’s a slice of my pie when I cut it out.

Although this recipes requires a lot of time, it’s well worth it if your looking to make a scrumptious family dinner. Plus, I’m pretty sure pot pies are healthy, so many vegetables!

I cooked my chicken using a rubber spatula and later went on to saute the vegetables with the same spatula. If your planning to use the same spatula for both steps, makes sure to clean it first like I did after cooking the chicken. . Or you can just use a different spatula but make sure to avoid cross contamination.

Tomorrow’s recipe will be Cheese scones! If you thought this recipe was awesome, wait till you check out tomorrows! Now if you excuse me I need to chow down on this creamy and flavorful pot pie with my family! Dinner is served.

I think from all the recipes I have made on this blog, this might be the best!

– Chef/Author Zubair M.