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.

Another Kind Of Spring Leaf

My pastry guy, Joe, has done the most fantastic tutorial on my fave mille-feuille - the Napoleon. You've got to read the post...

Yes, he made these!

It's aspirational baking at its best. I can see project this in my future...

Creamy Delicious Goodness

Let's say you don't read this blog to keep up on my novice sewist experiences... If that's the case, you're in luck because today's post is all about dessert! And not just dessert, but dessert with cream, chocolate and salt - or as I like to call it, nature's divine combination.

I love to eat creme patissiere (aka pastry cream aka that stuff that sits between the sugar crust and the fruit in a tart) with berries or, if we're being honest, out of the mixing bowl with a spoon till half of it is gone. Usually I make it in its purest iteration - with vanilla bean - but sometimes a girl likes to shake it up.

I've tried many recipes for this treat but, for texture and overall fab, Joe Pastry's is the best. Joe's is my go to baking blog. His sciency interpretation of all things sweet really contextualizes why we bake the way we do. And he is always there to answer reader questions.

All pastry cream versions involve the yummy, and chemical, interaction of:

• egg yolks
• some sugar (or chocolate, in this case)
  
• a binding agent (either flour or cornstarch, in general)
• flavouring i.e. vanilla bean or chocolate or coffee or caramel or whatever you like
• dairy - sometimes it's only milk, sometimes a mixture of milk and cream

Some thoughts, based on my own experience:

• milk and cream are superior to milk alone
• cornstarch is the better thickener
• Joe, and others, suggest about 4 oz of sugar (total) for 2 cups of liquid - I prefer half of that or even a little bit less. I don't like pastry cream to be notably sweet, just as I don't like ice cream to be notably sweet. In whipped cream, if there's even a hint of sugar I won't eat it.
• I love anything sweet with added fleur de sel. It makes the salt better and the sugar better.

I'm not sure if I've written about this before (in almost 3 years and 1000 posts, I can't remember what the hell I've said half of the time) but I'm continually amazed that you can bake just about anything - from solid to liquid to somewhere in between - with eggs, butter, sugar, flour and milk. Talk about the versatility of nature.

OK, Joe talks about the basic recipe far better than I could duplicate it here (follow the link above), but below are a few gratuitous photos of my experience:





For this variation, note:

• When you make chocolate pastry cream, use bittersweet (about 3 oz for 2 cups of liquid), reduce the sugar content (if you use any at all), and melt the chocolate with the liquid. You can also add the salt to the liquid as it's heating.
• Really mix the cornstarch well with the egg yolks. Sometimes I get a little bit of lumping and it's likely that this happens when I don't whisk like my life depends on it.
• This is a beautiful, traditional recipe that dresses up or down, depending on how you serve it. Put it in a pate sucre crust and it's the basis of a very chic tart. In ramekins with berries and a dust of cocoa, it's homey - but elegant - like pots de creme, without the bain marie and all the fussing with setting the eggs.
• It's really, really easy, peeps. Anyone can have fun making this in 15 minutes (ish). It's kid- and grown up-friendly.