Chicken Pot Pie

It's going to be rainy and cold out all day today so it is time to make a chicken pot pie

Fist we must cook the chicken and make some flavorful liquid. Put a 3-4lb chicken, a couple carrots, a couple ribbed for her pleasure celery, and some onions in a pot and cover with water

Steph, please go

Also you'll want to trim some of the fat off of the chicken's booty hole. I decided to render it in the background, possibly to make home fries in it later

Add a bunch of bay leaves, 15 or so whole peppercorns, and some salt to the pot as well

...

Bring to a boil and knock it back to a bare simmer. You can skim foam off if you like, it's not really necessary

Chicken should be done after simmering for 45 minutes. Take it out and let it cool until you can get your hands on it

Take all the meat you can get off of the chicken, discard any skin or cartilage (pictured in the back) but put any bones you are left with back into the pot, along with whatever bones you have saved in your freezer

You can chop up the meat now or later. Put it in the fridge for safe keeping

I should mention I'm going more for a stock as the liquid so it takes a while. You don't have to do this and can use the broth without any ill effects

continue OP

While you're waiting for the stock to get all stocky, it's a good time to make a crust

1.5c flour
1t salt
mix
cut in 1.5c butter like you were making biscuits until it looks crumbly
add 1 egg yolk and mix
add 3T cold water plus more if necessary to bring it together
wrap it up and put it in the fridge. It will last in the freezer for a couple weeks too

OK so at this point (~6 hours later) the stock should have given up most of what it will. You could do it for longer until you can easily snap bones but I'm not French enough to care. grab 2 cups and freeze the rest for other things

It should be obvious but this stock is post straining in a fine mesh colander

thaw 1c pearl onions
dice 1/2 regular onion, 4 medium carrots, 3 ribs of celery
melt 1/2 cup butter in a pan and throw the veg in on medium heat. cook until a bit soft

Thank you for this. I'm writing this all down.

after 5-6 minutes or so add flour and 1T sage. I only put in like 2T of flour and it needed probably double that as you will see later

So after the flour gets a bit tan and the sage is activated pour in the chicken liquid and bring to a boil. Kill the heat and add in the chicken

...a shitload of pepper

Channel your inner chef John and give it the ol' shaka shaka of cayenne

Quads confirm Chef John is inside all of us

a cup of peas, no need to thaw if frozen

...and a cup of heavy cream

At this point you can take this mixture and put it in the fridge for a day or two, but bring it up to room temp before you proceed with the rest of the pie

Grease a pan. This recipe is for a 9x13x2" 3 quart casserole but it's scaleable. I like to put it in the fridge while I roll out the dough

You want the dough to be about 3/8ths of an inch thick. It's gonna rip a bunch on the edges so just press it back together and if it isn't cooperating dab the edge with some water and try again. Personally I would make more dough next time to get better initial coverage but it's not critical, just makes it prettier. Use any scraps to patch up the holes. I didn't have enough to flute the edges so again, I'll make more dough next time

I should have mentioned that before you put the dough on preheat the oven to 375 because once that dough hits the filling it is go time

After all, you are the Heavy Weapons Guy of your chicken pot pie

I'd have thawed those for a minute or two in some warm tapwater first but maybe it doesn't matter.
I don't like my peas very cooked so I usually just thaw them like that and throw them in at the end if I'm making something with pea in it.

Whatever dough you have left over should be fashioned into a gay decoration

Beat an egg and brush it all over the dough, then plunk that baby into the oven for 50 minutes to an hour, usually depends on how warm/cold your filling is

wa la!

Let it rest for 10 minutes

Things I would do differently:

-Make more dough so it can properly cover the whole dish, slightly draped over the sides so it doesn't pull away like it did here-Use more flour in the roux, The end result was a bit soupy, still tastes good
-More pepper, but that's just me

nice

The crust looks delicious. Were the chicken and veggies cooked properly?

Everything was great. Peas were starting to get a bit gray but I don't think there's much you can do about that

Damn dude looks pretty good

>Use more flour in the roux, The end result was a bit soupy
just a tip. I did this last week and a lot of restaurants do as well. you can make roux ahead of time and keep it in a airtight container at room temperature and add it to anything when needed. when I made a pot pie last week I just did my roux in a separate sauce pot. if you do it this way, after you bring your stock to a boil and add your roux just cook and stir for 7-10 minutes until that flour taste is gone and its thick. if it's not thick enough add a little more roux

except it being so thin it looks fine, I love all that black pepper. can you taste the cayenne pepper that you added?

yeah you can taste it, I wouldn't have added as much as I did if I were cooking for my very white family

>preheat

Heat.

I had some extra chicken left over from last weeks pot pie so I used up some other left overs and made it again except this time I made a crust for the bottom only and added left over mashed potatoes to the top. turned out great. this time I had left over mushrooms to add and green beans instead of peas (rather have peas). also added some leftover corn that I had in the freezer.
pot pie is great for using up left overs. the only stuff that wasn't left overs was onion, celery and carrot

interdasting