Chicken Pot Pie

When deciding what to make for dinner, pot pies were never something that just jumped out at me. Maybe I just felt like it fell into the "too much like work" category. When I noticed that there was a Mini Pie Revolution event happening and our blogging partner Ann from Redacted Recipes was one of the hosts, I thought why not. I might even learn something.



I did a little reading and then decided to just invent my own recipe. Here's what I did.

Ingredients:

2 large skinless, boneless chicken breasts cubed





I created a marinade for the chicken of:

juice of 1/2 lemon
3 tblsp olive oil
2 cloves minced garlic
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp cracked pepper



Put the chicken pieces into a ziplock bag and add the marinade, distribute evenly. Leave in the fridge for about an hour.





3 tblsp olive oil
1/2 cup diced onion
1 cup diced carrots
1/2 cup diced cauliflower
1/2 cup green pepper
1 cup frozen peas
2 cups chicken broth
1/3 cup butter
1/3 - 1/2 cup flour

Process:

1. Add olive oil to skillet bringing to medium heat
2. Add marinated chicken until the pink is almost gone from the chicken
3. Add onion, carrots and cauliflower until vegetables begin to soften (about 10 minutes). I had a small amount of leftover chopped leeks and mushrooms so I threw them in too.



4. In a second skillet, melt butter, add flour and mix to create a roux (long enough for the flour taste to disappear. Add about a cup of chicken broth to the roux and stir til smooth. This should be quite thick in consistency.
5. Add the roux to the cooking chicken and vegetables
6. Add green pepper and frozen peas as well as the remainder of the chicken broth. As it comes up in temperature, the mixture will thicken.



7. Fill ramekins about 2/3 full.



8. I was curious about what it would be like to have a puff pastry top so that's what I used.
9. Bake in 350 F oven for 45 minutes - 1 hour. When the dough is done, you can be sure the inside is too since it was already partially cooked before it even went in.



WOW - for a first attempt, I was pretty okay with the result. Being okay meant I wasn't going to be forced to throw it in the garbage. The real test was going to be in the tasting.



Impressive!!! It was thick, rich, meaty and extremely tasty. The best of it was that what I learned was that it's not as daunting as I thought it was going to be. This may be the beginning of a whole new culinary adventure. I'm sure there's a much smarter way of doing it all - one that cuts time and mess. I'm looking forward to learning more about it.