chicken pot pie

The secret to this recipe is that the crust is baked separately from the filling, which guarantees it won’t be gummy underneath (a pet peeve of mine when it comes to pot pies). You need to trim your pastry to the inside dimensions of the baking dish and the easiest way to do that is trace it first on a piece of paper. I walk you through the steps below; it’s really easy. To make things even easier, you can use purchased pie pastry rather than making your own.

ingredients

pastry
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
pinch salt
7 tablespoons cold butter, cut into small pieces
3 to 4 tablespoons milk
1 egg, lightly beaten

filling
2 tablespoons butter
8 to 10 spring onions (see note) or 1 leek, cleaned and chopped
1 carrot, diced
8 ounces mushrooms, sliced
kosher salt
1 can (14 oz) low-sodium chicken broth
2 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 medium white potato or yukon potato, peeled and diced
1 small zucchini, diced
freshly ground pepper

directions

Preheat an oven to 375°F. To make the dough for the top, put the flour, Parmesan and salt in a bowl or in a food processor; stir or pulse briefly to blend. Scatter the butter over the flour, then cut it in with a pastry blender or pulse with processor until butter is in fine pieces. Pour in 3 tablespoons of the milk and mix quickly with a fork or pulse once or twice; if mixture seems dry, blend in remaining tablespoon milk. Turn dough onto a lightly floured board and knead briefly until it holds together. Wrap dough in plastic or waxed paper and put in the refrigerator while preparing the filling.

To make the filling, in a saute pan or wide saucepan with a lid, melt the butter. Add the spring onions or leeks and the carrot and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the mushrooms and sprinkle with salt; cover the pan and let mushrooms soften, about 3 minutes. Pour in the broth and bring to a boil. Lay the chicken breasts in the pan, then cover the pan again and reduce heat to a simmer. Cook until chicken is opaque through, about 20 minutes.

Remove chicken with tongs and place on a cutting board. Add the cream, potato and zucchini to pan and bring to a boil; let boil until thickened, 5 to 8 minutes, stirring once or twice. Meanwhile, cut chicken into small pieces. Stir chicken pieces into pan and turn off  heat. Season with salt and pepper. Spoon mixture into a 2-quart baking dish or soufflé dish and set aside.

Roll out the dough and trim it to the exact dimensions of the inside rim of your baking dish (you can trace a template of the dish on a piece of waxed paper or parchment paper, then place this on top of the rolled out dough; cut around the template with a small knife). Place the dough on a small baking sheet. Put the baking dish with the chicken filling on the middle rack of the oven and rest the baking sheet on top of it, like an oversized lid with the dough on top. Bake until the dough is golden brown, about 30 minutes. Carefully remove the baking sheet with the baked dough on it, then pull out the baking dish with the filling. Place the baked crust on top of the filling in the dish and serve.

note: spring onions look like green onions with bulbs at the base. To use them, trim the roots off the base, then cut off the bulb so it looks like a small pearl onion. Slice the green tops like you would a green onion and saute it all in butter as directed.