Chicken Pot Pie

I just love chicken pot pie. Chicken pot pie, you are so delicious.

Firstly - I set the oven for 200C. Instead of buying chicken breasts, I bought a whole chicken and cut away the breasts and wings from the rest of the body, skin, bones and all. I put a little butter under the skin and rubbed salt and pepper on the skin. I laid the half-chicken on a few rings of onion to keep the chicken from sticking to the roasting tray and shoved it into the oven until cooks (or mostly cooked).



Chop up two small onions, a couple sticks of celery and a two carrots. Melt some butter in a frying pan (preferably, use a NON non-stick pan). As the chicken cooks away in the oven, it'll start spitting out some fat. Take the roasting tray out of the oven and drain the chicken fat into the frying pan - using the chicken fat instead of just butter, vegetable oil or olive oil adds more interesting flavour.

Place the onions in the frying pan and cook them down a bit. While the onions are cooking down, place two stock cubes and the appropriate amount of water in a pot. Or, if you've got stock, just heat it up a bit - about 2-3 cups. Leave it on the stovetop, ready for use in making the sauce.

Add about two tablespoons of flour to the frying pan and stir constantly for about two minutes, scraping the bottom of the pan so that nothing burns, only browns. Basically, to make a roux, always just add the same amount of flour as butter. Slowly add in ladles of the stock and stir until a nice thick sauce form - taking care to scrape the bottom of the pan.




Once the sauce is formed, add the following: celery, carrot and a few tablespoons of cream. Take the chicken out of the oven and tear the breasts off the bone. Chop the chicken into small pieces (most of it will be cooked through, but don't worry if bits are a still a bit raw - there will be plenty of time for it to cook through later) and add them to the pan. Get some frozen peas out of the freezer and add a bunch of those, too.



Now for the pastry topping: this can be done hours in advance or just any time whilst you're cooking. The basic idea for the pastry is one part flour to one part fat, plus lots of salt and pepper, and maybe some sturdy herbs like thyme or rosemary. Here's what I did for this recipe: I measured out about 200g of flour - half plain and half wholemeal. I got out about 200g of butter and sliced it in to pieces - this helps warm it up a bit faster and makes it easier to mix. You may end up using less butter than that because you end up doing it by feel. So, into the bowl put all the flour, salt and pepper and about three-quarters of the butter. Now, work the flour and the butter together in the bowl with your fingers. Just start squishing it all together until the butter and flour is mixed and starts forming a dough. Once it forms a dough that mostly sticks together, add a bit of cold water (maybe just over a tablespoon) and mix the dough together til it forms a ball. Press that ball into a disc, leave it in the bowl and shove it in the fridge until you're ready for it - just make sure its cold and hard.



When you're ready, take the pastry out of the fridge, use plenty of flour one your work surface and rolling pin (aka wine bottle) and roll the dough out into whatever shape your dish is. Best thing to do is roll it out a bunch, then take your baking dish, turn it upside-down on the dough and press it down a bit so it leaves an imprint. Then use a knife and follow the imprint the cut the shape you need. Use extra bits to fill in the ragged edges. I usually have a bunch leftover and since the crust is obviously the TASTIEST bit, I use it all. I just formed it into another shape and doubled up the crust, ie. regular crust across the whole thing, with a second layer of heart shaped pastry in the centre. You'll see what I mean from the photo.




Okay, so... pour what's in the frying pan into your baking dish. Then place the pastry topping(s) on top - crimp the edges a bit so that the filling can't bubble over the top. Then cut a few slits in the pastry so that steam can escape.

One last step - thought its not necessary: crack one egg in a bowl and stir it up a bit. Glaze the pastry with the egg - this way it gets a nice, golden finish to it. I just use my fingers as I haven't got a brush.

Shove the pie in the oven at 200C-ish and cook it 'til its bubbling and the pastry is a pleasing light brown colour.



Enjoy!