Chicken Pot Pie

click HERE for a printable version

If some of you went through the work of preparing the chicken stock I would like to pass on a recipe for you how to use the chicken you have left over. This dish has been one of my favorit dishes since my childhood and it seems like I have passed on this preference also to my kids.

You can - of course - use chicken breasts (preferably with bone and skin)  just as well and cook them with some soup vegetables for 7 to 10 minutes. Then let them cool in the broth and later skin and bone them and cut into cubes.

Ingredients (serves 4-6)

550 g        chicken meat, cooked and cut small

2               sliced celery stalks

2 - 3         sliced medium sized carrots

1               finely cubed onion
2               minced garlic cloves
5               cubed white mushrooms (optional)
2               finely cubed potatoes (optional)
150 g        frozen small green peas

700 ml       chicken stock
150 ml       heavy cream
80 g           butter
40 g           flour

30 ml         white wine (can be substituted by lemon juice, then use less)

                 salt, white pepper

500 g        puff pastry (2 sheets)
1               egg (separate the yolk from the white)

• Preheat your oven to 185 C°.
• Heat a frying pan on medium-high heat and let half of the butter melt. Then add the onions and the garlic and fry - stirring occasionally - until translucent. Now add the mushrooms and let them fry for 2 minutes. Reduce the heat to medium, add the celery, carrots, frozen peas,  potatoes and 100 ml chicken stock. Let this cook until the liquid is more or less evaporated but not more than 8 minutes. Add the cut chicken and let it reheat. Salt and pepper to taste and take it from the stove. 
• Butter a casserole dish and spread one layer of your puff pastry into the dish. Pinch with a fork a couple of times and paint egg white onto the dough. Pre-cook in the oven for 10 minutes.
• Let the rest of the butter melt in a saucepan and add the flour stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. Don´t let the roux (that is your butter-flour-mixture) get to dark. Now take from the heat and add the cold chicken stock whisking it into the roux to avoid lumps. Set it back on the heat, add the white wine and let it cook on low temperature for 15 minutes stirring occasionally. Now add the cream and season with salt and white pepper. Pour the sauce over your chicken in the frying pan and mix together.
• Pour the mixture onto your pre-baked puff-pastry. Cover with the second layer of dough, pierce with the fork and paint it with the egg-yolk now. 
• Bake for 35 - 40 minutes until golden brown and crispy. Serve with a green salad.
  ©just-cook!