September 29th: chicken pot pie

Verdict:
Try Again: chicken pot pie

A few years ago, there was a chicken pot pie recipe in the Ottawa Citizen which came from a local restaurant. I tried it once, we all fell in love with it, and now I make it a few times a year. The filling is made by poaching bone-in chicken in water, then using the same water to cook vegetables, then the same water again (by now, a lovely broth) to make the roux. The crowning touch is the puff pastry crust. It is rich, filling, delicious.


Thus, when the February 2010 Chatelaine had a recipe for a puff pastry-topped chicken pot pie, my first thought was to pass it over entirely. We already have an amazing keeper recipe; why try something new? But something new is what I do. Eventually, the recipe (which I pulled out of the magazine even though I didn't think I would make it) wore me down, and tonight I committed and finally made it: Tuscan-style chicken pot pie. (There is also a video you can watch.)


(Side note here and now: unless you are crazy like me, do not attempt to make any pot pie on a weeknight. This is a time-consuming project, even with a cheater crust.)


I had a few doubts about some of the ingredients the recipe called for (namely, fennel bulb and artichoke hearts). Sure enough, those are not for me. The rest of the filling was good though, with a tasty roux. Oh, and huge: this pot pie yields 6 hearty servings. Yay for lunch tomorrow--for all of us! I was most intrigued by the crust, which calls for cutting half a frozen puff pastry in half, rolling out both halves, and then sandwiching them with a Parmesan-rosemary layer. With rosemary still thriving in my garden, how could I pass this by? I'm undecided on the crust so far--much denser than a normal puff pastry. Olivia loved it, requesting, "more pancake."


Greg gave it the thumbs down (in comparison to our already keeper recipe). I, however, plan to keep it, tweak it, and see if I can improve it. For starters, I'll likely use chicken thighs next time rather than breasts, as I find darker meat tastier in this sort of a dish, and it holds up better to extended cooking. I'll sub in a few other veggies for the above-mentioned rejections, and we'll see how version two turns out!

(For those who don't know how I operate, version two may not take place for months or years to come. It most likely will happen eventually though, as I am a sucker for puff pastry. No more than once a month! It's dreadfully unhealthy stuff. So good.)