Chicken Pot Pie: The Topic

[tippingvelvet]

Anyone have any tried and true recipes for chicken pot pie??

I've never made one, but with the weather being so cold I've craving some comfort food.

Thanks.

[sherribabee]

I'm afraid I don't have any recipes to share, but you might get more responses over on the Cooking category. I seem to remember chicken pot pie making an appearance in a thread a couple of months ago, but I can't remember if anyone posted any recipes. I know we discussed the crusts though.

Have you tried using the search function to find chicken pot pie related discussion?

Edited January 13, 2004 by sherribabee (log)

[hannahcooks]

I actually just made the chicken pot pie from Julia and Jacques Cooking At Home and can't recommend it enough. It is amazing.

[mkfradin]

I love the one in Betty Rosbottom's book "new american favorites" (I think?). It's not a traditional pot pie, but much lighter, with a nice winey gravy, leeks and prosciutto, and no potatoes!! It freezes really well, both topped with the crust and without it.

[curlywurlyfi]

Claire MacDonald has a really superb recipe for Chicken Leek + Parsley Pie; there is a touch of curry powder in the white sauce, not enough to make it taste curried but just enough for people to go, hmmm, what IS that delicious sauce? I'll PM you it if you like.

Fi

[sabg]

i need to make a chicken pot pie for a friends b-day....there is nothing i can buy them and they love my cooking but pot pie affiiciando i am not...need the best recipe anyone knows...thanks

[Dave the Cook]

You could do worse than following whatever instinct led you to the subtitle of your thread. The Best Recipe from Cooks Illustrated has a very good middle-of-the-road version, and if I recall, they give you two crust options. I remember it being a little underseasoned, but that's easily corrected.

[Mayhaw Man]

I am not going to lecture on the difference between what Mrs. Swanson called Chicken Pot Pie and what people in the Mississippi River Delta call Chicken Pie, except to safely say that when you have had the Delta version, you will be kicking Mrs. Swanson's yankee ass into the kitchen to keep her busy washing the dishes and keep her away from the stove. This stuff looks simple and plain, but it is one of the most sublime dishes in the whole traditional Delta cookbook of tricks. It takes some time, and you will probably never get the same amount of satisfaction out of cooking it that I do (I can remember begging my Grandmother to cook this stuff-I like it cold as much as I like it hot and when a dish was made i would, literally, eat it for every meal until it was gone) as it brings up memories of hot kitchens, old stoves, and the memory of a smell that I am certain will be the first thing I smell after St. Pete opens The Gate. It's really, really good. Really.

Serve with peas, fresh corn and cold, lightly vinegared tomatoes.

This is from my mother's cookbook-a gift of love like no other-I will be forever grateful to her for doing it for us boys.

Mom's Chicken Pie

Cook 1 whole roasting chicken in 3 qts. of water seasoned with onion, celery, carrot, salt, pepper, garlic, (your choice-I use tarragon, basil, and parsley), a little tabasco and some worcestershire. When chicken is done (falling from bone) debone and cut into bite size pieces. Strain and reserve stock to cook the dumplings in.

Dumplings:

1 1/2 cups SR flour

1 tsp. salt

1/3 cup shortening

1/2 cup milk

Cut shortening into flour until it resembles corn meal. Add milk just until it will hold the mixture together.

Roll onto a floured surface until very thin

Cut into small squares and drop into simmering broth (do not stir the dumplings-just shake the pot to keep them from sticking. Cook for 15 or 20 minutes in a covered pot on very low simmer.

Pastry

1 1/2 cups SR flour

1/4 cup crisco

1/4 cup lard (you can use 1/2 cup shortening if you are scared of lard)

1/2 tsp. salt

1/3 cup milk

Roll onto a floured surface and cut into strips. Dough will be pretty sticky before rolling out.

Make 1 1/2 cups cooked rice while you are doing all of the other stuff

Layer a 13 X 9 dish in this order

1) Dumplings to cover bottom of dish

2) Rice-spread evenly

3) Cut up chicken

4) Repeat layers 1 time

5) Crack black pepper over the top layer before putting on pastry

Lay pastry in strips on top of the above layer (my grandmother latticed the stuff-it looks cool but I never do it and neither does my mom)

Dot the top with butter chunks and bake at 350F until golden and bubbly. I usually add some chicken broth to make it pretty soupy before baking and that will guarantee that it will not be dry.

Make this stuff. You will do it again and again. Sublime Southern eating at it's very, very best.

Brooks

I should also add that my wife, who although born here is from a family of Iowans adds carrots to this (never peas-that is just plain wrong-I feel as strongly about that as all of those Texans do about those damn red kidneys in Chili). I have added very thin bell pepper strips of various colors under the pastry and that looks nice and adds a nice flavor.

[sabg]

I am not going to lecture on the difference between what Mrs. Swanson called Chicken Pot Pie and what people in the Mississippi River Delta call Chicken Pie, except to safely say that when you have had the Delta version, you will be kicking Mrs. Swanson's yankee ass into the kitchen to keep her busy washing the dishes and keep her away from the stove. This stuff looks simple and plain, but it is one of the most sublime dishes in the whole traditional Delta cookbook of tricks. It takes some time, and you will probably never get the same amount of satisfaction out of cooking it that I do (I can remember begging my Grandmother to cook this stuff-I like it cold as much as I like it hot and when a dish was made i would, literally, eat it for every meal until it was gone) as it brings up memories of hot kitchens, old stoves, and the memory of a smell that I am certain will be the first thing I smell after St. Pete opens The Gate. It's really, really good. Really.

Serve with peas, fresh corn and cold, lightly vinegared tomatoes.

This is from my mother's cookbook-a gift of love like no other-I will be forever grateful to her for doing it for us boys.

Mom's Chicken Pie

Cook 1 whole roasting chicken in 3 qts. of water seasoned with onion, celery, carrot, salt, pepper, garlic, (your choice-I use tarragon, basil, and parsley), a little tabasco and some worcestershire. When chicken is done (falling from bone) debone and cut into bite size pieces. Strain and reserve stock to cook the dumplings in.

Dumplings:

1 1/2 cups SR flour

1 tsp. salt

1/3 cup shortening

1/2 cup milk

Cut shortening into flour until it resembles corn meal. Add milk just until it will hold the mixture together.

Roll onto a floured surface until very thin

Cut into small squares and drop into simmering broth (do not stir the dumplings-just shake the pot to keep them from sticking. Cook for 15 or 20 minutes in a covered pot on very low simmer.

Pastry

1 1/2 cups SR flour

1/4 cup crisco

1/4 cup lard (you can use 1/2 cup shortening if you are scared of lard)

1/2 tsp. salt

1/3 cup milk

Roll onto a floured surface and cut into strips. Dough will be pretty sticky before rolling out.

Make 1 1/2 cups cooked rice while you are doing all of the other stuff

Layer a 13 X 9 dish in this order

1) Dumplings to cover bottom of dish

2) Rice-spread evenly

3) Cut up chicken

4) Repeat layers 1 time

5) Crack black pepper over the top layer before putting on pastry

Lay pastry in strips on top of the above layer (my grandmother latticed the stuff-it looks cool but I never do it and neither does my mom)

Dot the top with butter chunks and bake at 350F until golden and bubbly. I usually add some chicken broth to make it pretty soupy before baking and that will guarantee that it will not be dry.

Make this stuff. You will do it again and again. Sublime Southern eating at it's very, very best.

Brooks

I should also add that my wife, who although born here is from a family of Iowans adds carrots to this (never peas-that is just plain wrong-I feel as strongly about that as all of those Texans do about those damn red kidneys in Chili). I have added very thin bell pepper strips of various colors under the pastry and that looks nice and adds a nice flavor.

no carrot celery or onion? the dumpling part sound just sooo good

[Mayhaw Man]

Like I said at the end of my post, you can add as you wish. The broth that the chicken is cooked in, and subsequently the dumplings, is pretty strongly flavored so that the dumplings and the chicken are carrying all of the onion flavor-but you would certainy not be wrong in adding more to taste. Your call.

[Mabelline]

Thank you very much, MM ! I am going to surprise SO with that! He already had to spend two days on a lightning fire, so I think this sounds like just what he needs...

[Mayhaw Man]

Thank you very much, MM ! I am going to surprise SO with that! He already had to spend two days on a lightning fire, so I think this sounds like just what he needs...

If I had been out fighting fires, I would be looking for a few cold ones before anybody fed me a chicken pie or anything else.

[Cusina]

Damn, that looks good MM.

Thanks for posting it. Will you add it to recipe Gullet, pretty please?

[Mayhaw Man]

Added to recipe gullet #1026-Lois Oliver's Chicken Pie

There needs to be a Southern Category in Recipe Gullet.

[Marlene]

Chicken Pot Pie. . Here's the actual link back to the archive . We need several categories added to the archive. Just as soon as I can get Darren's attention, we'll work on it!

[Mabelline]

Oh yeah, his Yellowstone Brewing Company favorite is on ice. Although it may not be named the same in a while, for they are being litigated against by the distillery that makes that Old Yellowstone Whiskey for name infringement. They will probably lose, even though this is Yellowstone County, right along the Yellowstone River. The distillery is in Missouri, so, sic 'em Jaymes!!

[slowday]

I am not going to lecture on the difference between what Mrs. Swanson called Chicken Pot Pie and what people in the Mississippi River Delta call Chicken Pie, except to safely say that when you have had the Delta version, you will be kicking Mrs. Swanson's yankee ass into the kitchen to keep her busy washing the dishes and keep her away from the stove.

Now I know what I'm going to be doing on the last day of my vacation. Do you grease the bottom of the pan before putting the dumplings in the bottom of the 13x9? And should I put a sheet pan on the rack below the pan in case of spillover?

slowday

not afraid of lard

[fifi]

I think I know what my weekend project will be.

I do have a couple of questions.

You call for a roasting chicken. Can we assume that you mean one of those big birds, like 5 pounds or more? I am guessing that is the case since I think they have more flavor.

When you say 1 1/2 cups rice, I am assuming that you mean the measure of the cooked rice, not the rice before cooking. It looks like that is what you mean but I just want to be sure.

Somewhere, my education is lacking. I have never heard of a recipe like this before. What a kick in the a** for Atkins. Dumplings, rice, AND pastry!

Gotta go buy some SR flour.

[Mayhaw Man]

I am not going to lecture on the difference between what Mrs. Swanson called Chicken Pot Pie and what people in the Mississippi River Delta call Chicken Pie, except to safely say that when you have had the Delta version, you will be kicking Mrs. Swanson's yankee ass into the kitchen to keep her busy washing the dishes and keep her away from the stove.

Now I know what I'm going to be doing on the last day of my vacation. Do you grease the bottom of the pan before putting the dumplings in the bottom of the 13x9? And should I put a sheet pan on the rack below the pan in case of spillover?

slowday

not afraid of lard

Yes and Yes

I usually go as far as putting aluminum foil on the sheet pan as it makes clean up a ton easier. Pyrex is much mo bettah than a metal pan for this stuff.

You have to realize, this is my Mom's and my grandmother's recipe and when she made that book, she was expecting it to only go as far as her boys and her DIL's. Not only do we all know how to cook this stuff, we also know how to cook her way and all of the unwritten instructions are not even noticed by us (there is one whole paragraph in this book that is actually a set of instructions to a guest at her Lakehouse-we didn't notice for two years-like I said, we skip alot of directions ). The thing has traveled far and wide at this point. The worst part is that she wrote it on some bizarre and useless word processing program in the early 90's that translated into nothing else. She should have used cookbook software but she didn't. I will, sometime when I have a bunch of time-maybe at the Lake this summer-put it into real and useful to people besides her children form. This book is as good as any church book ever put together and better than some of the "B" grade Jr League books that abounded after River Road, Cotton Country Collection (mama was on the test committee-1973 was a good eating year at our house ), and Southern Sideboards.

Lard is not scary. Biscuits and pie crusts that aren't flaky are very scary.

[Mayhaw Man]

I think I know what my weekend project will be.

I do have a couple of questions.

You call for a roasting chicken. Can we assume that you mean one of those big birds, like 5 pounds or more? I am guessing that is the case since I think they have more flavor.

When you say 1 1/2 cups rice, I am assuming that you mean the measure of the cooked rice, not the rice before cooking. It looks like that is what you mean but I just want to be sure.

Somewhere, my education is lacking. I have never heard of a recipe like this before. What a kick in the a** for Atkins. Dumplings, rice, AND pastry!

Gotta go buy some SR flour.

My mother just turned 70 on Mother's Day (she looks mid fifties tops) and my Grandmother was still going strong at 80. Where is that Atkins guy?-10 toes up, pushing up daisies, 6 X 6 in the doit (that's dirt to those of you not from Brooklyn or New Orleans ), doing the big sleep, down for the last count-that's where! Had he eaten a few more dumplings, pastry, and rice he might have been around today.

Yes, a roasting hen-you can also use a bone in turkey breast, but sometimes those things turn out dry-but I've done it. But 4.5-5 lbs is what you want either way.

1 1/2 cups cooked rice.

I honestly think that this is a regional Delta dish. My next door neighbor growing up (A lovely woman from a little town in East Texas and all her cousins from Greenville, MS-she had an accent that would have rivaled Scarlet O'Hara's or my Mom's or her sisters) made a similar dish all the time and she said that it came from her cousins. I have found several similar recipes in Miss and East Ark. cookbooks (mainly church ones).

[fifi]

I honestly think that this is a regional Delta dish. My next door neighbor growing up (A lovely woman from a little town in East Texas and all her cousins from Greenville, MS-she had an accent that would have rivaled Scarlet O'Hara's or my Mom's or her sisters) made a similar dish all the time and she said that it came from her cousins. I have found several similar recipes in Miss and East Ark. cookbooks (mainly church ones).

I think you are probably right. My sister has quite a collection of "local" cookbooks (from churches and such) and she didn't remember a recipe like this one either. Even though southeast and east Texas has a lot more in common with the south than the rest of Texas, it seems that this one never made it across the Sabine.

I'll pass on the turkey. I'm gonna get me a whomping big roasting hen.

[Richard Kilgore]

Brooks, this sounds absolutely wonderful! It's on my to-cook list. I'll stand in line for your Mom's cookbook.

[Dana]

I ain't 'fraid o' no lard!!!

Does it get rancid? I bought some to make tamales at Christmas and have some left over. I guess I could just smell it???

[Toliver]

The worst part is that she wrote it on some bizarre and useless word processing program in the early 90's that translated into nothing else. She should have used cookbook software but she didn't.

Brooks, this is just a suggestion in regards to redoing the cookbook in a useful software format...You could use an OCR program to turn the scanned cookbook into something editable. It might save having to re-type the entire cookbook.

[Mayhaw Man]

The worst part is that she wrote it on some bizarre and useless word processing program in the early 90's that translated into nothing else. She should have used cookbook software but she didn't.

Brooks, this is just a suggestion in regards to redoing the cookbook in a useful software format...You could use an OCR program to turn the scanned cookbook into something editable. It might save having to re-type the entire cookbook.

That's a thought. I scanned it a few years ago. I think that the files still exist in one of my wife's computers at her gallery (although that could be along shot-no one should ever give artists access to computer files and a delete button )