Chicken Pot Pie

Simply put, I love a good chicken pot pie. My mother used to make it for us as kids. I liked it so much I often requested it as my birthday meal growing up (much to the chagrin of my youngest sister who's never been a big fan). Anyway, this is one of those meals I never tire of eating -- or trying out new recipes for.

Last week, as the summer air started cooling down, the taste of pot pie was on my tongue. I wanted to try something new, so I turned to Cooks Illustrated for a recipe. I just recently got an online subscription and I'm really enjoying it! With the exception of making a homemade pie crust, which is certainly worth the effort if you've got the time (and space, which I do not -- one of these days I need to post a picture of my tiny kitchen!), I followed the recipe pretty closely.

Recipe: Simple Chicken Pot Pie, published May 1, 1996

According to Cooks Illustrated, this recipe serves 6 to 8, which feels a little generous to me. I served to three people (including myself) and we nearly polished the entire thing off; I'd say it serves 4 - 6 max.

Ingredients:
1 Pre-made pie crust (I picked up a Pillsbury since I was in the regular-old grocery store)

For the guts of the pie:
1 1/2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts or boneless, skinless thighs (I prefer white meat)
1 can low-sodium chicken broth, with water added to equal 2 cups (or use two cups homemade chicken broth)*
1 1/2 tbsp. vegetable oil**
1 large onion, chopped fine
3 medium carrots, peeled and cut crosswise 1/4-inch thick
2 small ribs celery, cut crosswise 1/4-inch thick***
2 - 3 cloves of garlic (depending on how big), minced****
4 tbsp. unsalted butter
1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups of milk*****
1/2 tsp. dried thyme******
3 tbsp. dry sherry
3/4 cup frozen peas, thawed*******
3 tbsp. minced fresh parsley

Notes on the ingredients:
*Since I use chicken broth a lot in my cooking, I like to purchase the boxes of broth, which are usually equivalent to 4 cups; I just refrigerate what I don't use.
**I used olive oil and a little pat of butter.
***I actually bisected each rib lengthwise first and then cut crosswise (no difference other than the pieces are slightly smaller)
****The recipe did not actually call for garlic; I like it in my pot pies, so I added.
*****The recipe didn't specify what kind of milk to use, so I went with a combo of whole milk and heavy cream b/c that's what I had. If I had had enough whole milk, I would have just gone with that. Half and half would work, too.
******I chopped up a heaping tsp. of fresh thyme since I had it.
*******Because my package of chicken breasts was slightly less than a 1 1/2 lbs., I threw in 3/4 cup of frozen green beans (thawed), too.

Instructions:
Adjust your oven rack to low-center position and preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Set one pre-made pie crust out. Bring to room temperature while preparing the pie filling. (I know this seems counter intuitive with dough, but for whatever reason, these crusts are easier to work with when they're not pulled right from the fridge.)

On the stove, place chicken and broth in a small Dutch oven or soup kettle over medium heat. Cover, bring to a simmer; simmer until chicken is just done, 8 to 10 minutes. Transfer meat to large bowl, reserving broth in a measuring cup.*

Increase the heat to medium-high; heat oil in now-empty pan. Add onions, carrots, and celery; saute until just tender, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and saute and additional minute. Season to taste with salt and pepper. While vegetables are sauteing, shred meat into bite-sized pieces. Transfer cooked veggies to bowl with chicken; set aside.

Heat butter over medium heat in again-empty skillet. When foaming subsides, add flour; cook about 1 minute.** Whisk in chicken broth, milk any accumulated chicken juices, and thyme. Bring to a simmer, then continue to simmer until sauce fully thickens, about 1 minute.*** Season to taste with salt and pepper; stir in sherry.

Pour sauce over chicken mixture; stir to combine. Stir in peas (and green beans) and parsley. Adjust seasonings. (Can be covered and refrigerated overnight at this point; reheat before topping with pastry.)

Pour chicken mixture into 13x9 inch pan or any shallow baking dish of similar size.**** Roll out dough and lay over pot pie filling, trimming dough to 1/2 inch of pan lip (I didn't find that I needed to do this -- you might with a homemade crust). Tuck overhanging dough back under itself so folded edge is flush with lip. Flute edges all around. Or, don't trim dough and simply tuck overhanging dough into the pan side. (I did a variation of the latter. I simply pressed the hanging dough around the pie dish itself; I was concerned about the dough pulling away from the sides of my dish if I just tucked inside.) Cut at least four 1-inch vent holes in pie top. Optional: Lightly beat an egg with a little water and brush over top of the pie with a pastry brush. This will the give the crust a nice golden brown top once baked.

Bake until pastry is golden brown and filling is bubbly, about 30 minutes for large pies and 20 - 25 for smaller pies.***** Serve hot!

Notes on Instructions:
*I misread this and actually cut up my chicken ahead of time, so I just poached the pieces. It turned out fine and saved me from having to shred up the meat later, which is what they recommend you do. Next time I'll try it the way they said.
**I could have done this wrong, but when I added my flour, it clumped up very quickly. It almost felt like I needed a little less flour (like maybe only a 1/3 cup) or an extra tbsp. of butter. Whatever you do, keep stirring constantly, so your mixture doesn't burn!
***It could have been my stove (which is a tired, old electric guy), but it took longer than a minute for my sauce to thicken. I continued to stir until all the clumps had broken up and I had a nice, smooth creamy texture.
****I used my new 2-quart oval gratin dish!
*****My oven is retarded and always takes longer to bake things, so my pie was in closer to an hour. The egg wash proved useful because when the top had finally turned a nice golden color, I knew it was ready!

I paired my chicken pot pie with mixed greens, tomato, and goat cheese salad, and white wine (Pinot Grigio). Just writing about this makes me want to make it again...

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs...

I know, I know. I abandoned my blog again. Up to May, I can blame it on finishing up my masters; beyond that, um... dunno. In general, I seem to have taken a break from all writing this summer. Call it burn out from school. Anyway, I'm back again and I'd like to talk meatballs. I made some good ones last night and thought I'd share the recipe.

For me, the key to a good meatball is seasoning and moisture. This particular recipe recommended frying up a test meatball in the skillet before fixing the whole batch, which I thought was a great idea. If the meat is under seasoned, add a little more S&P to your meatball mix. If the meatball tastes too dry, add a little more milk! Simple as that. It's too much time to invest on a weeknight for your meatballs to turn out dry and flavorless...

Also, if you're pressed for time (as I often am), forget making homemade sauce. Nowadays, there are so many good ones out there that you can buy! Last night, I purchased two jars of Lucini's Tuscan Marinara with Roasted Garlic sauce, which run about $7.50/jar at Whole Foods. In the regular grocery store, I like the Classico Four Cheese, which is slightly more economical, somewhere around $4 I think.

Back to the meatballs. This recipe came out of Alice Waters's The Art of Simple Food, which is quickly becoming my new favorite cookbook -- $23 from Amazon.

Here's what you need for the meatballs:
1 pound ground beef*
3/4 pound ground pork**
Kosher salt
Black pepper
1 cup torn-up pieces of day-old country-style bread, crusts removed***
1/2 cup milk
1 small yellow onion, peeled
1 tablespoon of olive oil
2 garlic cloves, peeled and pounded to a paste with a pinch of salt****
1 tablespoon chopped fresh oregano (or 1 teaspoon dried)
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley (Italian flat leaf is best, but curly will do)
A pinch of cayenne pepper
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Serves 4

Notes on Ingredients:
*Ms. Waters specified grass-fed beef, which I had since I went to WF, but you could just use regular old ground beef if that's what you've got to work with.
**Ms. Waters specified "pork shoulder"; I just went to the meat counter and asked for the ground pork they had available.
***If you have day-old bread, that's best, but since I didn't, I just bought a loaf of Italian bread (since I was planning to serve with dinner anyway), cut off a hunk, removed the crust and cut up a bunch of small pieces.
****I used a garlic press to smash up my garlic, added a pinch of salt to it and then ran my knife back through once more to make sure it was sufficiently smashed up, but that's mainly because I was looking for an excuse to use a new kitchen gadget.

Instructions:
Place ground meats in a bowl and season with salt and pepper. (Make sure your bowl is big enough to accommodate the other ingredients.)

In a small bowl, combine the bread crumbs and milk. Set aside to soften.

Using the large-holed side of a box grater, grate your onion. Mind your fingers! This treatment of the onion yields a nice puree, which adds moisture and flavor to your meatballs instead of having chunks of onion in the mixture. Add the puree to meat mixture.

Squeeze most of the milk out of your bread and place in the large mixing bowl with the meat and onion.

Add olive oil, garlic paste, oregano, parsley, cayenne, egg, Parmesan, and additional salt and pepper. Combine ingredients with your hands thoroughly (suck it up and do it!), being careful not to overwork the mixture as that will make your meatballs tough. Here comes the test part. Fry a small meatball in a skillet to taste. Adjust seasonings and milk accordingly if needed (I found that I like my mixture just as it was). Gently form the mixture into meatballs either by hand or using a small ice-cream scoop (the scoop obviously helps to get equal sizes if you care about that).

At some point during the mixture making and meatball shaping, you'll want to heat your sauce on the stove as well as a pot of water for your pasta if you're planning to serve this spaghetti and meatball style, which I did...

From here, you can cook your meatballs one of two ways. Bake the meatballs on a rimmed baking sheet in a 450 degree oven until just cooked through, about 6 minutes. Or, fry them up in a little olive oil in a cast-iron skillet (Lauren, if your reading, yet another use for your skillet!), turning occasionally for even browning.

While messier, I opted to fry mine up because I like the nice brown crust that comes from frying. (Usually, I'll deglaze the pan with some red wine after I'm finished, and add all those yummy bits to my sauce, but alas. There was no red wine in my house last night, so the bits went to waste.) Anyway, you don't need a ton of oil, just enough to coat the bottom of your pan (your meat will give off it's own grease and juice to the pan). I have a crappy electric stove top that gets unruly with temperature, so I kept my heat on a level 6 to start and adjusted as needed when the pan got screaming hot to avoid burning. If using gas, you could probably push to the higher end of medium-high for browning, just be careful because the grease will definitely splatter a bit.

I fried my meatballs in batches (about five or six at a time) -- you need enough room to move them around while flipping over. When they were browned on all sides and firm enough to pick up without falling apart, I plunked them into to my sauce that was simmering on the stove. Once all meatballs were in the sauce, I turned up my pasta water to high and threw in my spaghetti. Timing it this way allowed for my meatballs to flavor up my sauce, but more importantly ensured that my meat was cooked all the way through before serving. You'll probably want to skim off your sauce a couple times after the meatballs have been sitting in the sauce since their grease will rise to the top of your pot.

Serve with warm crusty Italian bread and a salad if you desire!

It's good to be back. More soon I promise. And, if anyone who makes meatballs often is reading this, I'd curious to know what your own recipes are. Send me a post!