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Matt and I have a terrible habit of getting really hungry around 10 or 11 p.m. and wanting more than a bowl of cereal or a sandwich. So last night, we decided to try out a new recipe, something that we haven’t gotten around to doing for a couple months because of how crazy our schedules have been (and because we’re in a dinner group and rarely have to make dinner for ourselves).
This chicken potpie recipe is scrumptious–we found it in one of my favorite cookbooks of all time–Taste of Home’s Prize Winning Recipes, 2007 (SO worth the $10 I spent on it) and changed it only slightly to fit our preferences. Seriously, this cookbook is worth finding on eBay and getting for yourself, because I’ve never made something out of it that I didn’t absolutely adore.
The recipe is pretty straightforward, but I do recommend rolling the bottom pastry out even larger than it recommends so it for sure covers your dish all the way around the bottom and sides. If you’ve never done a pie dough where you just “cut” in the butter (and cream cheese, in this case), it can be a bit tricky—you just hold two knives, one in each hand, and cut down into the dough, with the blades going in opposite directions but touching each other. You basically just keep doing that until the dough is very crumbly, at which point you’ll need to use your hands to really mush it together to make a workable dough. (Update: do yourself a favor and invest in a pastry blender. Soooo much easier to do than the two-knife method, and they’re usually not that expensive!)
This took us about an hour to make, but it would take a lot less if the chicken were pre-cooked and cubed; all in all, with pre-cut chicken, you could prepare and bake the entire thing in about 45-50 minutes.
Old-Fashioned Chicken Potpie
1/3 cup butter
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1-1/2 cups water
2/3 cup milk
2 teaspoons chicken bouillon granules
2 cups cubed cooked chicken
2 cups frozen mixed vegetables (or you can sub in equal amounts of frozen peas, corn, and a handful of baby carrots)
Pastry:
1-2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon celery salt
1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese, cubed
1/3 cup cold butter
In a saucepan, melt butter. Stir in flour, garlic, salt and pepper until blended. Gradually stir in water, milk, and bouillon. Bring to a boil; boil and stir for 2 minutes. Remove from the heat. Stir in chicken and vegetables; set aside.
For pastry, combine flour and celery seed in a bowl. Cut in cream cheese and butter until crumbly. Work mixture by hand until dough forms a ball. On a lightly floured surface, roll two-thirds of dough into a 12-in. square. Transfer to an 8-in. square baking dish. Pour filling into crust. Roll remaining dough into 9-in. square; place over filling. Trim, seal and flute edges. Cut slits in pastry.
Bake at 425 degrees for 30-35 minutes or until crust is golden brown and filling is bubbly.
Yield: 6 servings (and that’s a true yield–even Matt didn’t take much more than one serving at a time because it was so darn satisfying)
My rating: 5 Stars
