Sunday Night Dinner: Homemade Chicken Pot Pie

For a person doing nothing, making dinner tonight sure took a lot of time. I followed Joe Pastry's "recipe" (but I made the crust gluten free, using a new recipe and, um, there were a few rolling challenges).

It's not difficult, but everything takes time. To wit:

First you chop and brown whatever vegetables you like...

I made a mirepoix and added a potato, peas, mushrooms and sage.

Then you add some chicken. I Scott shredded one that comes from the store:

Let that sit while you prep a veloute (stock and roux - with a bit of milk for good measure) and make a crust. Better still, make those a day in advance.

In a hilarious turn, I made the veloute with regular flour. I just didn't know what would happen, texturally, with a non-wheat flour, and I wasn't feeling experimental.

I put the ingredients in the plate before adding the veloute. I find it's tidier than trying to transfer a saucy casserole from saute pan to oven-safe container:

In truth, I don't think I'd added the veloute at this point (see photo above). Everything was going in different directions so photography wasn't my top priority.

I really should have followed another recipe for the crust. It looks alright here:

But it's unstable. It's merely butter and flour. Nothing to give it any structure (vinegar, egg, water - something!). I thought I was being minimal but I can smell this crust melting down in the oven - literally. It's not cohering.

It shouldn't have surprised me because this is what happened when I tried to position it:

I must be changing because Krissie of 5 years ago would never have shown you such an eyesore?! At this point, I don't really care. I mean, it's a miracle I got it from the counter to the top of the pie.

I didn't make the stock from scratch, nor did I prepare the chicken and I still worked for a good 90 minutes before sliding this into the oven.

I do hope it's tasty, even if the crust is a bust. Lord knows there's enough of it.

Do you make savoury pies? Do you like them? Let's talk.

Update: The finished pie was flawed, but in a promising way. Next time I'll sautee the vegetables for longer, use a different crust and brown the roux for longer (my ratios - which I followed from Joe's recipe - were off and so the sauce is a very tiny bit floury). Also, the fact that the crust from this iteration of the pie is basically butter/flour slurry (albeit of the rice variety), it soaked up the veloute and the sauce became too thick. M LOVED it, flaws notwithstanding.  Scott, who doesn't ever like veloute, was not into it. It takes a long time to make this given that one of us doesn't like it. Still, it's very hearty, warming and the flavours are beautiful. I can see myself making this occasionally - especially as, when I fix the issues, it's going to be totally delicious.