This is our *FAVORITE* cool weather comfort food. It's very flexible in that it can be made into one large pie, 6 dinner sized individual servings, down to 18 mini appetizer pot pies (I make these by baking in a 4oz short jelly jars).
Ingredients
Pastry:
1 1/4 cups All Purpose Flour
1/2 teaspoon Kosher Sea Salt
1/2 cup fat: all butter, all lard, mixture of butter and lard. All will work.
2-3 tablespoons (or more) ice water
Filling:
1 whole (2 split) Poached Chicken Breasts, cubed
2 cups Chicken Stock, preferably the poaching liquid from the poached chicken breasts
1 teaspoon Chicken Powder
1 cup diced Carrot
4 Tablespoons Butter
1 medium Yellow Onions, chopped
1/4 cup All Purpose Flour
2 Tablespoons Heavy Cream
1 cup Frozen Peas, rinsed
1/4 teaspoon ground Peppercorn
3/4 teaspoon Kosher Sea Salt
Prepare
FOR THE PASTRY:
Wisk together flour and salt.
Cut fat into the flour mixture until fully incorporated into a shaggy dough.
Add ice water a tablespoon at a time until the dough holds together.
Between sheets of waxed paper, roll dough into desired sizes: for example, if making six dinner sized portions, divide dough into 6 balls and roll out six rough rounds.
Place rolled dough in the freezer.
Can be made ahead and stored in the freezer until ready for use.
FOR THE FILLING:
Preheat the oven to 375.
In a small saucepan, bring the chicken stock and chicken powder to a boil.
Add diced carrot to boiling stock and blanch for 2 minutes, then remove from stock.
Cut the heat on the stock.
In a Dutch oven or large pan, melt the butter over medium heat and sauté chopped onions until translucent. Be care to continually stir so onions do not brown.
Reduce heat to low, and add the flour to the onion butter mixture, stirring constantly, for 2 minutes.
Slowly add the hot chicken stock to the onion butter roux.
Simmer over low heat, stirring, until thick. Cut the heat.
Stir in salt, pepper, and heavy cream.
Stir until well combined, then stir in cubed chicken, carrots and peas.
TO ASSEMBLE:
Portion filling into baking proof bowls or into large pie plate, 9"-10" oven proof skillet, etc.
Top with pastry and score the pastry.
The pastry will be stiff coming out of the freezer. You can either let it come to room temperature before baking so that you can shape the pastry, or leave as is and it will bake down in the oven for a more rustic finished pot pie.
Bake for one Hour. Allow to cool for about 10 minutes before serving.
