Clucking over chicken pot pie
A recipe for chicken-and-chestnuts pie
One of the great pleasures of cooking is making stuff up. When it works, that is.
I have invented some diabolical dishes in my time. I am baffled to this day as to why I ever imagined that bananas would go well with pork, an early experiment. And I produced a perfectly dreadful steamed pudding only the other day, with dried cranberries and other gravel bits.
But sometimes it’s possible to come up with a combination that you can imagine in your mouth even as you do the mental pairing and sense it is going to be good. My recent twist on chicken pot pie was pretty delicious, though I say so myself, and a lovely way to celebrate Easter, what with its everything-chick associations.
Even since I had to make bechamel sauce by the gallon for weekly school Home Ec classes (before the government got rid of them, helping to usher in the era of take-outs and obesity), I’ve not been much of a fan of it.
I’ll grin and bear it in aid of a cheese souffle, a moussaka or lasagna. But if something else works in its place, I’ll betray it without guilt.
It seemed to me that a dinner party-fit version of the chicken pot pie could be contrived by ditching that sauce along with all its bulking ingredients - carrots and peas and potatoes and celery and broccoli and the like (and, for the most mournful variation, left-over cooked chicken scraps). I thought I might replace the mushy veg with something a little more exalted.
Fiddling about with a chicken pot pie is probably sacrilegious in the US. It’s almost the nation’s national dish. (Or would that be the burger - which arguably is German…or mac-’n-cheese, which originated in Northern Europe…or the hot dog - Germany again…or…or…Anti-immigration Brits should take note of the positive impact of incomers not just on keeping the nation’s wheels turning but on its menus.)
Like those other popular US fixtures, the chicken pot pie is also an import, of older origins than the US. It actually emanated from Greece. Ancient Greece. Pieces of cooked chicken were placed in open pastry shells called artocreas. The Romans stole the idea (which surely settles that question of who came first, the Greeks or the Romans), adding a top-crust lid that turned them into pies.
The Britons ran with them next, in the 16th century, sticking pretty much anything into a pastry crust. (Remember the line in that century’s Sing A Song of Sixpence: “Four-and-twenty blackbirds baked in a pie”?) Brits went nuts for pies. The chefs of British and French royals, barons and merchants competed with each other for the most startling impressive effect, decorating the pastry with all manner of designs. Birds were the chief filling, those blackbirds of the nursery rhyme being alive in one pie and flying off the instant they were released from the crust, to the amazement of guests who must have wondered if supper goodies that were actually edible could then be expected. Some bird fillings were of birds filling each other, one stuffed inside the next then wrapped in pastry, a precursor to today’s dire turducken. Chicken peepers were tiny chicks stuffed with gooseberries but gooseberries have since fallen out of favour, not to mention the consumption of cute fluffy chicks.
Recipes for chicken pie can be found in 1796 although chicken ‘pot’ pies aren’t mentioned till 1839. It doesn’t seem the recipe for them was followed by anyone until 1877, thirty eight years later. Maybe there’s a future yet for my pork-and-bananas adventure.
Americans were introduced to chicken pot pies via a 19th century bird pie that called for robins. As they crossed the nation with their chickens, not robins, in tow and settled down, the chicken pot pie became a staple of the comforting American home kitchen.
Thinking I might move mine upwards into self-consciously pretentious fare that might also prove as delicious its kitchen cousin, out went the regular vegetables in favour of leeks and dried porcini mushrooms. These were reconstituted and added to a quantity of chestnut mushrooms. Small Portobello will work just as well but I was on a ‘chestnut’ kick as you will now see. A thin puree of chestnuts took the place of the dreaded bechamel. Chestnuts may generally be associated with autumn or winter, but here creating this rather wonderful sauce, they are a celebration of any time of year.
I’m pleased enough with the result to pass the details along and hope you will ignore my immodesty. An added bonus is that you can dilute the chestnut part of the recipe ever further and come up with a wonderfully noble soup. If you don’t like making your own pastry (I find the operation soothing), buy it.
Feeds 4-6
1 free-range chicken or 2 whole breasts on the bone
2 medium carrots, scrubbed but not peeled
1 celery stalk, washed and trimmed
1 bay leaf
4 black peppercorns
1 small onion, unpeeled
50g/2oz butter
3 leeks, white part only
handful dried porcini, about 30g/1 oz, soaked in warm water to cover
250g/½lb chestnut or small portobello mushrooms, wiped, trimmed and cut in quarters
250g/½lb canned or vacuum-packed unsweetened chestnuts
50g/2oz pancetta or bacon
1 pint light stock
¼ pint single/table cream
1 packet puff pastry
1 egg, beaten in 1 tablespoon milk
Put the chicken in a deep pot with the next six ingredients. Cover with light stock or water and bring very slowly to a simmer. Skim off any froth. Keep the chicken at a simmer for 50 minutes until cooked through. Turn of the heat and let the chicken cool in the broth. When cold, take it out, remove its skin, lift it off the bones in the large chunks it naturally falls into. Return the skin and bones to the stock and bring back to a boil, covered. Then remove the lid and at a low boil, continue until the stock is reduced by half.
Cool then strain, discarding the vegetables and bones and refrigerate. Once cold, remove the solidified fat. Cut the chicken into large pieces and lay in a baking dish.
In a frying pan, melt 50g/2oz butter. Add the pancetta and the washed and trimmed leeks into circles 6mm/¼ ins wide and gently soften in the butter. Drain with a slotted spoon and add to the chicken.
If necessary, add more butter to the pan and toss the quartered mushrooms until coated and beginning to soften. Drain the porcini over a bowl into a sieve lined with two paper towels, reserving the water. If they feel gritty, wash them under running water. Otherwise, squeeze them and slice, if necessary, then add to the chestnut or portobello mushrooms to take up the flavour. Next, pour the strained soaking water into the pan and cook all together until the water has almost evaporated and become a silky sauce.
Add the chestnuts and stock to a small pan (and water if necessary to make up the amount) and simmer for 30 minutes or until the chestnuts are soft.
Remove six chestnuts when cool enough, break them into small pieces and add them to the chicken dish. Puree the rest of the mixture in a blender and season to taste. Stir in the cream then enough stock to pour over the chicken to provide a generous amount of sauce.
Gently toss to evenly distribute the ingredients throughout, most easily done with clean hands. Place a pie flute or upturned eggcup in the middle of the dish to support the pastry.
Heat the oven to 190C/375F.
Roll out the pastry to a circle large enough to cover the pie dish and with 2cm/1in to spare. Dampen the rim of the pie dish. Lay the pastry over the filling and fold the excess edge back under and press down onto the pie dish with the tines of a fork to seal. Glaze with the beaten egg, pierce a few steam holes with a fork and bake in the centre of the oven 35-40 minutes or until golden.
