Chicken pot pie topped with delicate flaky pastry crust and baked to a rich golden brown makes a hearty meal on cold winter days. This traditional American meal, often served at potlucks and public dinners in rural America, provides a nutritious and economical meal from leftover chicken and vegetables.
Origin
Ancient Greeks cooked meats and poultry in open pastry shells called artocreas, but the Romans added the top crust creating the first real pot pies.
Name
Pot pies gained their name from the English tradition of forming a freestanding pie, called a coffin, by molding the pastry dough around the bottom of a pan or pot. Once removed from the pot, a variety of meats, poultry, game and vegetables were added and topped with a pastry cover. The English also made small meat filled pastries called "pasties." These pies, formed from a round circle of dough topped with meats and spices, were folded and sealed into a pocket that served as portable lunches. Initials or names carved in the top crust served both a vents for escaping steam, and to identify the owner of the pot pie.
Colonists
Colonists relied on pastry shells to seal and cook chicken and vegetables, primarily due to the economic factor. A chicken potpie stretched the available chicken by adding plenty of vegetables and sealing it in a pastry shell. Pastry dough was more economical to make than other forms of breads, as it required only flour, water and fat.
New England
Chicken pot pie became a staple in the diet of New England families as it enabled women to feed their family a nutritious meal on limited resources. Some replaced the pastry shell with a covering of piping hot biscuits. Today chicken pot pie is made either with biscuits or with pastry shells, depending on the preferences of the family.
Ingredients
Basic ingredients include chicken, potatoes, carrots, onions and peas. Some recipes include celery and additional herbs. Often chicken potpie is made from leftover roast chicken. Covering the carcass with water, adding diced onions and simmering for hours creates a broth used as the base of the pie. Margarine or chicken fat mixed with flour and cooked into a thick bubbly roux creates the base of the sauce. Chicken broth is added and simmered to thicken into a rich sauce. Vegetables, generally in the proportions of three cups of potatoes, two cups of carrots and one cup of peas, are added to the sauce. Cut-up chicken covers the bottom crust and the vegetables and sauce cover the chicken. The top crust seals the pie and it is baked to a golden brown.
Tags: pastry shells, topped with, chicken potpie, chicken vegetables, from leftover, golden brown
