Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Chicken Pot Pie

Oh. My. Word. I have missed you, chicken pot pie. Things with cream sauce and flaky pastry have been the hardest to recreate on my own. I finally found a couple of recipes to cobble together and the results have been fabulous. And it's GLUTEN FREE!!!! Not dairy free, but I'm sure you could change it up if you needed to. Plus, if you don't have to be gluten free, you could just get a can of whop biscuits and throw those on the top to make it even quicker.

{you know, whop biscuits? The ones in the can that you have to whop on the counter to open?}

I wish I could say I made this up, but it's pretty basically Bette Hagman's recipe from her Gluten-Free Gourmet Cooks Comfort Foods. I change it up a tiny bit, but not really enough to say it's my own recipe.

Filling Ingredients:
1 cup diced cooked chicken
2 cups chicken stock
1/2 cup diced carrots
1/2 cup sliced celery
1/4 cup minced onion (i always chop a whole onion. onion is our friend.)
1/2 cup frozen peas (i use a can of those lesoeur peas with mushrooms and pearl onions- it adds a nice touch.)
3 tablespoons GF mix (or flour)
2-3 tablespoons water
1/4 cup cream
salt and pepper to taste

Oven at 350.

prepare chicken and set aside. In my case, that means open the can and flake it with a fork.

put the chicken stock in a large saucepan and bring it to a boil; add the carrots, celery and onions and cook for 15 minutes. Add peas and chicken and cook 5 minutes longer.

Mix the flour to a thin paste with the water. Use it to thicken stock and cook on low 1-2 minutes. Add cream and season with salt and pepper.

Pour mixture into a 2-quart casserole dish or individual ramekins (which I haven't tried but OH the cuteness!) and top with globs of biscuit dough. Bake for about 20-25 minutes.

I ALWAYS double this recipe and put it in a 13x9.

Topping (gluten free):
Her recipe says to use her biscuit recipe, obviously. I don't. My mom spent her last snow day from school baking batch after batch of gf biscuits, tweaking 1/2 teaspoon here and there of various things to find the perfect recipe. I don't know what it started out as, but now it's hers and it is GOOD. So that's what I use instead.

1/3 cup butter
1/2 cup potato starch
3/4 cup cornstarch
1 1/4 tsp xanthan gum
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup milk

Oven at 375 if you're making actual biscuits with this recipe, otherwise I just throw the dough in blobs on top of the pot pie stuff and use the 350.

In food processor, blend all ingredients except milk. When everything is blended, add the milk and blend till smooth. Drop by spoonfuls onto greased baking sheet. Bake 15 minutes to make 8-9 biscuits.

I always have to at least triple this when I make biscuits for breakfast. A double batch works nicely for a double batch of potpie filling.


My daycare baby is highly enamored of the pot pie.

Here's one serving, ready to eat.

Side view of the casserole dish as it comes out of the oven. I'm not sure if I was trying to be artsy or what- now I'm looking at it and thinking it's kind of weird.

But I guess from the top, all you can see is huge fluffy biscuits, so it's good to have a side view to show off the sauce. :)