Chicken Pot Pie

This recipe is from Joy of Cooking, but uses Mark Bittman's butter pie crust. I have made this a few times before (the dates ... and ... are marked in the cookbook). It is a great meal, but does take some hours to make.  I start from scratch -- poach the chicken, cool and shred the chicken, make a milky cream sauce (trying to cut as much fat as I can) for the chicken, saute all the vegetables and combine with the chicken.  THEN, you assemble the casserole with the pie crust and bake.  For this version, I made the whole pie on a Saturday, but we didn't have a chance to cook it that day. So we saved it for 2 days in he refrigerator, then had a great Monday night meal.

The main problem with the pot pie this time was that the filling was too runny and didn't scoop out like nice pie pieces. Maybe I should have let the milk sauce thicken longer on the stovetop, although the recipe gave no instructions to.  In the past I've made this in a smaller, oval baking dish, but this time I followed the recipe and spread it out in a large 9x13" dish. That worked fine, but does give a larger pie crust surface area; and I am more interested in the chicken pie and not the rich butter crust.  Maybe one time I will switch back to my olive oil crust and see if the hubby notices the taste difference. ;-)

The cooked pot pie. The inside was delicious but too messy for pictures.

Chicken Pot Pie
Chicken Filling
1.5 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 cups chicken stock
2 Tbsp butter 
1-2 Tbsp olive oil (original recipe called for 4 Tbsp butter and no olive oil)
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1.5 cups 2% milk (original recipe called for whole milk or light cream)
Grated nutmeg
White pepper


Place chicken (cut into strips) and stock (plus enough water to just cover all the chicken) in a large pot and bring to a boil.  Poach chicken untildone (8-12 minutes).  Remove chicken and let cool.  Shred chicken into bite-sized pieces. Reserve broth.

Melt butter and olive oil in a large saucepan over medium-low heat.  Add 1/2 cup flour and whisk for ~1 minute.  Add 2 cups chicken stock and whisk until smooth.  Whisk in the milk, increase heat and bring to a simmer.

Stir in the cooked chicken.  Season with grated nutmeg and white pepper to taste.

Vegetable Filling
Olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
3 medium carrots, peeled and sliced 1/4" thick
3 celery stalks, sliced 1/4" thick
8 oz mushrooms, sliced

Heat olive oil in a skillet.  Add and cook the onion, carrots, celery until tender, about 5 minutes. Add mushrooms and cook.

Stir the vegetables into the creamed chicken mixture.

To assemble the pie
Preheat oven to 400-degrees

Pour the pot pie filling into a 9x13" glass baking dish.  Lay the pie dough over the top (see recipe below).  (Optional: brush top of crust with 2 Tbsp of beaten egg)

Bake for 25-35 minutes, until crust is golden brown.

Mark Bittman's Butter Pie Crust
1.5 cups (5 oz) all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 stick cold butter, cut into pieces
3 Tbsp ice water

Combine flour, salt, sugar in food processor and pulse 1-2 times.  Add the butter and process until butter and flour are blended and the mixture looks like cornmeal (~10 seconds)

Place the mixture in a bowl and sprinkle 3 Tbsp ice water over it.  Gather the mixture into a ball.  Turn dough out onto a sheet of plastic wrap on the counter top, and flatten the dough to a small disk.  Wrap in plastic.  Freeze for 10 minutes or refrigerate for 30 minutes (to ease rolling).

Roll out dough between 2 sheets of plastic wrap to the size of a 9x13" baking dish.

Butter and flour -- Making the roux for the chicken cream sauce.

Chicken Pot Pie filling. I could eat it just like this.