Chicken Pot Pie for the Maillard Reaction Addict’s Soul

The ulti­mate win­ter com­fort food: Make one or more of those when it’s nice out­side, cov­er tight­ly with foil (see instruc­tions below) and pop it into the oven when it’s cold!

  • Ingre­di­ents!
  • 1 lb. bone­less skin­less chick­en breasts
  • 1⁄3 cup butter
  • 1⁄2 cup sliced celery
  • 1⁄3 cup onion, chopped
  • 1⁄3 cup all-pur­pose flour
  • 1⁄2 tsp. salt
  • 1⁄4 tsp. fresh­ly ground black pepper
  • 1⁄4 tsp. cel­ery seed
  • 1⁄2 tsp. gar­lic powder
  • 1 tsp. chick­en bouil­lon paste, or a chick­en bouil­lon cube, or 1 tsp. chick­en bouil­lon pow­der, or more to taste 
  • 1 cup milk 
  • 8 oz. frozen veg­gies (mix of car­rots, peas, green beans, and corn)
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tbsp. milk 
  • 1 pre­made pie crust, or make your own with Cthul­hu’s home­made pie crust

Directions

Preparing the chicken, option 1:

Put the chick­en in a saucepan with water. Bring it to a sim­mer and cook until it’s just bare­ly cooked through, then remove the chick­en to a plate.

Reserve about 1 ¾ cup of the water in a mea­sur­ing cup, and dis­card the rest. 

Preparing the chicken, option 2:

As a diehard Mail­lard Reac­tion addict, I active­ly avoid boil­ing meat in favor of roast­ing, grilling, or fry­ing in a skil­let when­ev­er pos­si­ble, so I pre­pare the chick­en this way instead:

We’re mak­ing gravy here to go with the chick­en and veg­gies, after all, so I pre­pare the chick­en with that in mind: I cut the breast into bite-size pieces, sea­son with salt, pep­per and papri­ka, and brown it in a skil­let with a bit of oil.

I trans­fer the chick­en into a bowl and deglaze the skil­let with 1 3⁄4 cup water: Bring it to a boil, scrape up the yum­my brown bits and greasy stuff, then trans­fer to a mea­sur­ing cup and use it when the recipe calls for the reserved water.

Add onions, cel­ery and but­ter to the saucepan and cook for a few min­utes, until soft and translu­cent. Stir in the flour, salt, pep­per, gar­lic pow­der, bul­lion and cel­ery seed. Slow­ly stir in the reserved water and milk. Sim­mer over medi­um-low heat until thick.

By the way, chick­en pot pie is the quin­tes­sen­tial Franken­stein-friend­ly dish: Oth­er than the crust, you can do just about any­thing you want here: Besides the skil­let option for prepar­ing the chick­en, you can go nuts with sea­son­ing, veg­gie choic­es, any­thing. Add mush­rooms, use leeks instead of cel­ery or onions; sky’s the limit.

Add chopped chick­en and frozen veg­eta­bles. Taste and sea­son with more salt, pep­per, bouil­lon or gar­lic pow­der if needed.

Impor­tant: Put the pie fill­ing in the fridge and let it cool com­plete­ly: If you put the fill­ing in the crust while it’s still hot you’ll have your­self a sog­gy crust.

Pre­heat oven to 425 degrees F.

Spray a 9‑inch pie pan with non­stick cook­ing spray. Put the bot­tom half of your pi

Add cooled chick­en pot pie fill­ing. Roll out sec­ond pie crust and place over the top of the fill­ing. Seal edges of the two crusts togeth­er and crimp them, if desired.

Use a sharp knife to make a small slit in the top pie crust to allow steam to escape.

Whisk 1 egg with 1 table­spoon milk and brush a very thin lay­er over the top pie crust before baking.

Bake for 40–50 min­utes, or until the top crust is gold­en brown and fill­ing is bub­bly. If you find the pie crust is brown­ing too quick­ly, cov­er it with a piece of alu­minum foil. 

Allow chick­en pot pie to cool for at least 15–20 min­utes before serv­ing, to allow it to set up.

Freezing Instructions

You can freeze chick­en pot pie before or after bak­ing. Cov­er tight­ly with alu­minum foil and freeze for up to 3 months. Thaw com­plete­ly overnight in the refrig­er­a­tor then bake as direct­ed, or pop it in the oven frozen for about 60 min­utes, then check every few min­utes until the crust is gold­en brown and the fill­ing is bubbly.