MADE: Chicken Pot Pie

Not Chicken. Raw chicken is just not photogenic.

Something I'm proud of: I made it through college without once buying Ramen.

That is not to say that I didn't sink to some pretty low food-MacGyvering in times of dire financial straits. Did I attend meetings of clubs I didn't care about because there was free Thai food at said meetings? Possibly. Did I steal spinach and cereal from the dining hall in plastic bags and tupperware? Of course. Did I ever convince myself that saltines and peanut butter constituted a sandwich, and thus a meal? It's better not to remember that time.

Through the majority of those rapscallion years, I dated a vegetarian,* cooked with a vegetarian, and thus effectively became a vegetarian when not at restaurants. I developed plenty of opinions about vegetarian cooking and eating during that time (For instance--making a "vegetarian" version of something does not mean "replacing the meat with EVERY VEGETABLE KNOWN TO MAN." To the misguided folks who do this--you are the reason that veg-haters hate. Not cool.) One thing that's fact, rather than opinion, though, is that buying meat is expensive, making vegetarianism a lifestyle of convenience for perpetually-poor college students.

When I went home for the summer, then, I was used to cooking vegetarian dishes. This would have been fine, except for a certain punk kid brother of mine. We'll call him Luke. I'm pretty sure he's a hipster Tyrannosaurus with a GPS implanted in his brain. If an entrée doesn't have meat in it, he sends it back. Or just complains a lot. As the summer wore on, I quickly grew tired of his pre-teen snark, and endeavored to make more food WITH MEAT IN IT. This chicken pot pie--perfect for feeding a ton of people, particularly if one of them is a secret T-Rex--was one of the recipes that sprang from Luke's demands, and one of the best. I cobbled it together from a variety of recipes and was pretty pleased with the result. It's a pretty flexible recipe, and the mix of spices and veggies is quite open to interpretation. A more traditional pie might have peas, corn, and green beans in it, while an even meatier version (that I might cook up in the near future?) would obviously contain bacon.

Pastry Crust
8 tbsp butter, chilled
3/4 cup flour, plus some for dusting and flouring surfaces
1/4 cup ice water

Cut butter into flour with a pastry blender until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Turn the mixture onto a working surface and mix in the water a little bit at a time, until the dough just clings together--this might not use all of the water.
"Turn" the dough by kneading/rolling it flat (about 3/4 inch thick), folding it in thirds, and kneading/rolling it flat again. The first couple of "turns" will be more like "flops," as the dough gets itself cohering. Do about nine turns in all, then let dough rest for a half hour, in the fridge if you'd like. (This is a good time to do some work on the filling.)

Filling in a Skillet
1 tbsp butter
1 medium onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 red pepper, diced
Salt and pepper to taste
1 tbsp Raspberry Pepper Jelly (optional, but delicious! You could also use a hot pepper or chili powder for a little extra zing.)
Splash of white wine (just how big of a splash is up to you...)

Melt butter in a medium skillet. Add diced onion and garlic and cook for about two minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the peppers and reduce heat, simmering for ten minutes, still stirring occasionally. Sprinkle in salt and pepper to taste, and add any spicy goodness during the simmering. Add boiled chicken (see below) and splash in white wine, stirring briskly until the wine is mostly cooked in. Set aside until pot pie assembly.

Filling in a Pot
3 medium potatoes, diced
1/2 head cauliflower, cored and chopped
1/2 cup baby carrots, diced
1 small tart apple, cored and diced
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, diced

Bring a pot of water to a boil. Toss chicken chunks into the boiling water for about five minutes, until whitish rather than pinkish. Leaving water boiling, scoop out chicken and deposit in skillet. Drop in vegetable and apple chunks and boil for 10 minutes, or until slightly softened. Scoop out veggie and apple chunks into the pot pie container--a deep stoneware bowl works best, but a general casserole dish works too. Add the skillet mixture once it's tender and delicious, and mix well, adding additional salt and pepper to taste. A sprinkle of cumin or sage wouldn't go amiss here, either.

Filling in a Saucepan
3 tbsp butter
1/4 cup flour
1 1/2 cup milk
2 1/2 cup chicken stock, water, or the reserved water from the boiling pot
Pepper and a sprinkle of nutmeg

Melt butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Once butter is thoroughly melted, add flour and whisk briskly for about two minutes. The mixture should be thick and goopy--a little like cookie dough. Add the milk a little at a time, whisking until smooth after each addition. After all the milk has been added, cook for three minutes, stirring occasionally with particular attention to the sides and corners of the saucepan. Add the chicken stock one cup at a time, stirring until smooth after each addition. Cook for an additional 3 minutes, then remove from heat.

Final Assembly

Heat oven to 425 degrees F.
If you haven't already, combine skillet mixture (onions, peppers, and chicken) with pot mixture (veggies and apples) in a large casserole dish or oven-proof stoneware bowl. Pour the saucepan of gravy over the vegetable mixture and mix everything together. This is a good time to do a taste-test, making sure that no last-minute spice additions are needed.
The dough's had its little rest, so bring it back out and turn it a few more times. Then, roll it out to a little larger than the circumference of the pot pie bowl. Lay the dough over the filling, pressing around the edges of the bowl to seal. Cut a few knife slits in the top of the crust for ventilation. If you'd like, brush an egg wash over the top of the crust to get a nice golden brown crispness--I mixed my egg with a splash of water, a twist of sea salt, and the tiniest smidge of chili powder.
Bake for 30-35 minutes, until crust is just golden and filling begins to bubble around the edges. (If your pie is particularly full, you might want to put a baking sheet underneath the dish to catch bubble-over.)
Then DEVOUR, particularly if you are a carnivorous Cretaceous predator disguised as a blonde miscreant sibling.

Bubbled over. Still delicious.

*Just in case you were worried, I'm still dating him. He's less of a Real Vegetarian now, though. More of a Vegetarian of Convenience.