Chicken Pot Pie (aka Woods’ Family Christmas)

I know. You’re all probably so over Christmas. It’s the New Year already, if you’re on top of it, the decorations are down, the tree is put away, and the next thing we’re looking forward to is springtime and finally being warm again. Well, you all know how I work around here, and if I’m going to go through about a thousand photographs and blog about them, the fact that I’m rolling out the Christmas posts while it’s still January is a pretty little Christmas miracle in and of itself.

So let’s reflect, shall we?

Besides, I still have a party to blog about that happened in November, so be impressed that Christmas is here.

For the last I-don’t-know-how-many-years I’ve requested my mom’s homemade Chicken Pot Pie for my birthday gift. When Josh and I got married, we had a pot-luck style reception (it was small enough and informal enough it worked beautifully) and my mom brought a huge cast iron skillet full of the goodness. So this year for Christmas when we were trying to make plans, this just seemed like the natural thing to make. Besides, it was high time I learned how to make it as well.

I’m pretty sure I’ve gotten my cooking techniques from my family; I rarely see either my mom or my dad look at a recipe. Everything is made by taste, by feel. So for any of you that are wondering where all the neatly written recipes are on this little blog, um… I don’t have them. I love cookbooks, I love food blogs, I love recipes, but I almost always use them as just a loose inspiration.

So I had to laugh as my mom was teaching me to make Chicken Pot Pie and I’d ask her how much of something to add, and she’d say something to the effect of, “Well… I don’t know, just taste it.”

It’s a pretty basic peasant kind of food. Chicken cooked in onions, garlic, a bit of oil, S&P, and some herbs; oregano, sage, thyme, whatever tastes good to you. Add a bit of flour to coat the chicken and cook a bit more… steam your veggies first so they’ve got a head start because they won’t cook all the way as the pie bakes. This evening we used potatoes, broccoli, carrots & green beans. Add the veggies into the pot with the chicken, some broth, and a bit of a roux if you need to thicken it up. Let the filling simmer and bubble for a bit while you work on the pie crust.

Now here’s where we deviated… My whole life my mom’s made the classic pie crust of white flour, salt, shortening and water. In the last couple of years I’ve started my own traditional pie crust of whole wheat flour, salt, butter and water. I don’t love the idea of cooking with shortening and try to sub out whole wheat flour whenever I can. So after much teasing and rivalry, we decided to make two different pies (we had enough filling for five pies; I’m not joking. I have a jar of filling in my freezer for next time). She spent a good 20 minutes bragging about how she makes the best pie crusts, and then the texture didn’t turn out and spent another 20 minutes griping about how the recipe has failed her and it won’t stick together well. Well, of course I took full advantage of that and made my crust as beautiful as I could. I brushed it with an egg white and sprinkled salt on top. Lovely.

In the end they both turned out terrific. Bake the pies long enough to get the crust crisp, and you’re all set. Perfect comfort food.

I had to put this picture in; my baby sister, Emily, is in a full-blown Tim Burton/Johnny Depp phase. She’s sitting here in her top hat watching Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory while we’re cooking. Cute girl.

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This entry was posted on January 02nd, 2010 and is filed under Events, Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.