Chicken Pot Pie

the highest purpose of any leftover roast bird is to be baked into a chicken potpie or as the Brits would say ate chicken pie very broad definition of pie the Brits have step one is to make some pastry dough because it has to chill in the fridge before you can roll it out whoops forgot to take off my ring two cups of flour go into the food processor 1/2 teaspoon of salt and one stick of cold salted butter right out of the fridge cut it up into little chunks before you put it in otherwise it'll just kind of spin around in a big glob if it's not cold it'll melt in the Machine and we want it to stay hard we want lots of tiny globs of butter still solid because when we roll those globs out later that's what's gonna make a flaky crust now traditionally at this point you'd put in just enough cold water to make this come together as a dough but because I use white wine in my sauce for this and I had a bottle in my refrigerator one day I thought let's use wine in the crust and it was just crazy pants good it makes the crust a little sweet a little fragrant it's great I just pour in about a tablespoon at a time whizz it up and then check the texture until it's right there I know that that looks too dry but it's not see how I can squish it into a little flake of dough in my fingers that's right and that was just three or four tablespoons of wine dump that mess out onto some plastic wrap and seriously you just barely bring this together into a ball it won't feel right but trust me the less that you work this now the more crumbly and flaky your crust will be later wrap it up and toss it in the fridge to chill oh hey there's my leftover roast chicken that's half the meats from a three to four pound bird you could roast it yourself using my method linked in the description or honestly you could just buy a store-bought rotisserie chicken my other major ingredients will be one pound of carrots and one cauliflower I love this purple variety I'd like to be the kind of guy who doesn't bother peeling his carrots I tried to be that guy for a while but honestly the skins are bitter as are their stemi little heads so I line them up and decapitate them and then I line up their raggedy tips and cut those off too then here is my secret for cutting carrots into even pieces just cut them progressively shorter as you work your way up and they get thicker man I love carrots okay for the cauliflower I think the easiest way to cut it up is to stab into it and cut out the core the core is what's holding all the florets together so without it they all just kind of fall out into the board cut them up into big bite size pieces bearing in mind that they're gonna shrink a bit when cooked in addition to looking cool I bet that this purple breed has all kinds of antioxidants and speaking of good health here comes another fall stick of butter I know I know but two things to remember we're making like eight portions of pie here and just because I'm melting a whole stick in a big pan right now doesn't mean I'm gonna use all of it start whisking in about a cup of flour whenever I make a roux like this to thicken a sauce I always make a little bit more than I think I'm gonna need and I reserve some of it that way if I think it's too thin later I can put in more Roux yes this was a little bit too dry too much flour but whatever when it smells nutty you're good to pull some out to reserve and then start whisking in half of our bottle of white wine from before a little bit at a time if you just dumped it all in at once it would slosh around uncontrollably as you whisk traditionally I suppose chicken pie is made with bechamel that's a sauce of milk thickened with roux and I use milk too but man I think one or two cups of wine bring much-needed sweetness and acidity just brings everything to life now here comes the milk and I'm gonna start with four cups again whisking it in a little bit at a time though as you gradually get this sauce looser you could start adding bigger doses without risk of sloshing I can already tell that this is not gonna be as thick as I want it so what the hell in with the rest of the roux it's a two stick of butter pie I'll go for a run tomorrow get everything in bring it to a boil whisking constantly this will stick to the bottom of the pan and burn in a heartbeat if you're not careful and that may look very thick but make all the jokes you want I like it thick and you can always add a little bit more milk later if it's too thick it's very easy to thin a sauce out it's harder to thicken it back up now here comes my little secret liquid chicken bullion I have no shame about this I'm using it the exact same way that fancy French restaurants use a spoonful of Demi glass to boost up a sauce the only hitch with this stuff is that they put in tons of salt to make its shelf stable no worries you just plan for that that big spoonful of bullion will simply be the primary source of salt for this entire pie time for the carrots to go in because they're gonna take the longest to cook I suppose that you could have been steaming them separately while you were making this sauce just to save some time but cooking them in the sauce saves on dishes and it keeps all of their flavor inside the pie notice that I have switched to a spatula carrots would get stuck in the whisk got to keep stirring and scraping the bottom or this sauce will catch and burn get your oven preheating at this point 400 degrees Fahrenheit you want to cook these carrots until they're feeling about half done I just test them by poking one with a fork I cooked these about 12 minutes before I put in the cauliflower I think cauliflower always cooked surprisingly fast so once it gets going get your leftover roast chicken ready cut it up into bite-size pieces and dump it in that's looking a little too thick even for me I believe the British term would be claggy I'll mix in another bath cup of milk like we did with the carrots we want to get the cauliflower half cooked how do you know it's half cooked we'll have some confidence a lifetime of eating things with a fork has given you an innate sense of how a fork should feel as you're using it to pierce a vegetable when it feels like you're halfway to that it's time to test for seasoning taste the sauce this needed pepper and a lot more salt actually you want the sauce to taste really salty too salty why because you're not going to be eating the sauce by itself it's flavor and saltiness is going to be highly diluted in each mouthful by these big chunks of vegetables and meat trust me make your sauce too salty then pull the pan off the heat and flour your board it's time to roll the pastry flour the top of it and just roll a little and turn it roll a little again then turn it turning it make sure that it doesn't stick to the board and it helps you to roll the whole thing more evenly this is gonna seem like it's breaking apart you will think that there's no way this is gonna work just keep the faith roll turn as it warms up as you start stretching out those little beads of butter into little sheets this will start looking and feeling like an actual dough if a hole opens up just grab some excess from another corner and perform a little skin graft as you keep rolling everything is going to smush together honestly if this pastry is hard to roll out that's a good indication that it's going to be crumbly and flaky and delicious you can test whether you've got the dimensions right by comparing it to your two and a half to three quart you want at least an inch of excess on all sides that helps you to form a seal and also the parts that hang over the edge get yummy and crunchy crack an egg into a bowl and whisk it smooth with some water then use a pastry brush to smear that egg wash all around the edge that will glue the crust to the dish at the last possible second dump in a cup of frozen peas into your pie filling yes frozen solid they will thaw and cook in the oven and the longer you can delay that process the more green they will be on the plate I was very happy when I figured that out I love peas and I hate seeing them go gray filling goes in the pie dish I had a tiny bit extra but no well then gently drape your pastry on top and quickly before it starts to melt brush egg wash over the top this will help the crust Brown and also make it nice and shiny some people pierce holes in the crust at this point to release steam I find that one or two usually open up by themselves anyway so I just let nature take its course pie goes in the oven and do yourself a favor and put some aluminum foil or something underneath it to catch any sauce that boils over or pieces of crust that drop off I wish that I had done that bake for about 20 minutes or until the crust is nice and brown now something to remember is that flour thicken sauces thin out when they get hot and they thicken back up as they cool so if you want your sauce to cling to your veggies and your chicken as you spoon this out let it rest at least 10 minutes before cutting into it look at those nice green peas I'm a genius yeah I'll admit that that purple cauliflower stains the sauce a little bit but I don't care it still looks cool really trust me on the white wine in both the sauce and the crust it makes the flavor of this so much more complex see all those nice flakes of crust if our dough had been more doughy and easier to work with this crust would be solid and kind of chewy not flaky and crumbly like this this has got to be the greatest cold-weather dish of all time it is a lot of work I'll admit but it feeds a lot of people and it will make them very happy it is a hug on a plate

Channel: Adam Ragusea

Views: 1,877,095

Rating: 4.9198608 out of 5

Keywords: chicken pot pie, chicken pie, pie, carrots, cauliflower, roast chicken, leftover, leftovers, pastry

Id: IbgpNZfi6Xo

Length: 9min 12sec (552 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 29 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/hxgmmgxh]

Now I'm hungry.