Chicken potpie

In short, this is such a good chicken pie,  it is totally worthwhile to endure cooking process. It is arguably one of the best I have ever had. It is hard to believe this dish actually start from, God forgive, leftovers…

A few shortcuts, though: I used pre-made pastry. I know – home made pastry is not that hard to do. But, I didn’t feel brave enough for it… and, the one in the supermarket is also perfectly fine for this purpose…  If you don’t have any chicken leftovers, and need to cook it from scratch, add some herbs and vegetables when boiling it (this recipe work just fine). Everything else is so tasty, it is a crying shame to put in some bland rubbery chicken.

Chicken potpie (adapted from Thomas Keller‘s Ad hoc at home)

Ingredients

2 sheets of basic pie pastry

Chicken Pie Filling

• 1 cup of potatoes cut in about 6cm  pieces
• 1 1/4 of carrots cut diagonally in 6cm pieces
• 12 white pearl onions
• 3 bay leaves
• 3 thyme sprigs
• 24 black peppercorns
• 1 1/4 cups of 4-6cm of pieces of celery,  cut on the diagonally
• 2 cups of shredded cooked chicken

Béchamel sauce

• 3 tablespoons of unsalted butter
• 3 tablespoons of all-purpose flour
• 3 cups of whole milk
• 1 salt and freshly ground black pepper, or to taste
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
• 1/2 teaspoon finely chopped thyme
• Pinch of cayenne
• 1 egg, beaten

Method

Roll out the dough and line the baking tray with one of the sheets. Put the other one a plate. Refrigerate both.

Place the potatoes, carrots and onions in a saucepan with the bay, thyme and peppercorns.  Top with cold water to cover. Gently bring to a simmer. Cook  until just tender, about 8-10min (the original recipe asked for each vegetable to cooked in individual pans, but I just put everything together in the same one). Once cooked, drain the water and discard bay, thyme, and peppercorns. Cut the onions in 2 and set aside to cool.

Blanch the celery for just over a minute in a large pot of boiling salted water, until they are tender/crispy. Drain and let it cool in a bowl of iced water. Set aside with the other vegetables

You can now start the béchamel. Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Whisk in the flour and cook for 2 to 3 minutes, adjusting the heat as needed so the mixture does not brown. Whisk in the milk, lower the heat to keep the bechamel at a gentle simmer, and cook, whisking ofter to ensure it doesn’t burn. It should take about 30-40minutes until the sauce has thickened and reduced to about 2 cups. Season to taste with salt, pepper, parsley, thyme, and cayenne.

Put the oven racks in the lower third and center of the oven and preheat the oven to 190 oC (about 375oF).

Remove the pastry sheets rom the refrigerator. Scatter the vegetables and chicken into the pie shell. Pour the béchamel over them. Moisten the rim of pie shell with some of the beaten egg. Cover the filling with the top crust and press the edges of the dough together to seal. Trim away the excess dough that overhangs the rim. Brush the top crust with the egg. Cut a small vent in the center of the dough with the tip of a paring knife to allow the steam to escape.

Bake on the lower oven rack until the crust is a rich golden brown, 50 minutes to 1 hour. If necessary, move the pie to the centre rack during the last 10 minutes of baking to brown the crust. On the other hand, if crust is browning too quickly, cover with aluminium foil.

Transfer to a cooling rack and let rest for 10 minutes.