Chicken Pot Pie

Please forgive the photograph-- I promise this pot pie tasted a hundred times better than it looks here. Pot pie is a good way to repurpose your chicken leftovers. Where you might get a little snack out of what's left of your chicken, pot pie lets you stretch it a lot further with the addition of lots of vegetables and a nice buttery crust. My husband liked this so much I suspect he will want to skip the plain roast chicken next time and go straight to the pot pie.

For the crust (adapted from this recipe):
2 sticks cold unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch pieces
2 cups chilled flour
1/2 tsp salt
About 1/2 cup chilled water

Make sure all of these ingredients are cold! Chilling is the key to success with pastry crust. Start this well ahead of time, because when the crust is assembled it will need to chill in the refrigerator for about 3 hours. Put your butter on a clean work surface. You'll need plenty of room. Dump the flour and salt over the butter, then begin cutting the flour and butter together with a pastry cutter or a fork. I used my bench scraper and it worked really well. Once the butter and flour are blended (it should look like coarse cornmeal, with some pea-sized pieces of butter) add the water a little at a time and mix with your scraper or a knife. You should have something that looks like a crumbly dough at this point.

Push the dough aside and dust your work surface with flour, or put down a pastry mat. I use my Silpat for this and it's amazing. Start rolling out your dough on the mat. Feel free to dust your rolling pin with flour at any time if your dough is sticking. Try to make it rectangular. Fold the short sides in so they meet in the middle, then fold the whole thing in half lengthwise. Turn it 90 degrees, roll it out again, and repeat the folding process. Put the dough in a Ziploc bag or a Tupperware and put it in the fridge for 15 minutes. Take it out again and repeat the roll-and-fold two more times. Put the dough back in the bag and back into the fridge for at least 2 hours (and up to overnight). Now you can make the filling for your pie.

For the filling:
1 or 2 tbs olive oil
1 leek, cleaned and sliced
1 bulb fennel, diced
3 carrots, sliced
2 ribs celery, sliced
1 cup sliced mushrooms
1 cup peas; if you're using frozen peas, thaw them out

For the sauce:
2 tbs butter
1 tb of the brown jelly from the chicken (not the fat, which is yellow)
2 tbs flour
2 1/2 c milk

Preheat the oven to 350. Heat the olive oil in a Dutch oven, and put in the leeks, fennel, carrots, celery, and mushrooms. Cook over medium-low heat. While these are cooking, take all the remaining meat off your chicken and set it aside in a bowl. Save the chicken carcass for stock. Check on your veggies. When they're getting soft (remember they'll continue to cook in the oven), take them off the heat and stir in the thawed peas and chicken meat.

Heat the milk in your measuring cup in the microwave for two minutes. In a saucepan, melt the butter and chicken jelly and sprinkle the flour over it. Let this cook for a couple of minutes. Pour the milk into the saucepan and whisk your mixture. Cook over low heat (you should bring it to a gentle simmer) until it thickens. Whisk it often so it doesn't have any lumps. Pour the sauce over the chicken and veggies, stir, and season with salt and pepper.

Once the dough has chilled, take it out and let it rest on the counter for about 10 minutes to take the chill off, otherwise it'll be impossible to roll. Roll the dough to about 1/8 of an inch thick and try to make it the right shape for your pie. Put the crust over your pie, tucking in the edges, and cut a few slashes in it to let the steam out while it bakes.

Put the pie in the oven and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the crust is puffed and golden.

This recipe is easy to modify: you can make it vegetarian by leaving out the chicken (obviously) and using a vegetable bouillon cube in the sauce. Just mash the bouillon cube up with the butter (a trick I learned from Nigella. Thanks, Nigella!) and then proceed with the flour and milk. You can also use whatever vegetables you like; my personal opinion is that pot pie isn't pot pie without carrots and peas, but if you want to put something else in there, have at it.