Chicken Pot Pie

I have been craving chicken pot pie for a couple of weeks, but I haven't been able to find frozen pie crusts at the supermarket. So earlier this week, I made a pot pie from scratch....even the crust! I had never made crust before, and I was a little intimidated, but it really wasn't that difficult and it turned out fantastic! It was the BEST chicken pot pie I have ever had!

I got both of the recipes from allrecipes.com, the greatest recipe site ever. I just had to make a few changes to them in order to accomodate the differences in products that I can get here.

These are the original recipes: Chicken Pot Pie IX and Butter Flaky Pie Crust.

Ingredients that I used:
Chicken Pot Pie:
1 lb chicken breasts
1 can of mixed vegetables
3/4 stick margarine
1/3 cup chopped onion
1/3 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
2/3 cup milk
2 Maggi chicken flavor cubes dissolved in 1 3/4 cups water

Pie Crust:
(the original recipe is for ONE pie crust, so I doubled it for pot pie)
2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 sticks of margarine
a bowl of ice water

First, I put the flour in the freezer. Every ingredient for a pie crust needs to be very cold.

Then I put the chicken breasts on to boil. While they were cooking, I melted the margarine with the onion until it was soft. Then I added the flour, salt, and pepper. Then the dissolved Maggi cubes/water and the milk. I let it simmer on low, stirring it every now and then, while I did everything else.

I took the flour out of the freezer, and mixed the flour and salt in a large bowl. Then, I grated my sticks of margarine (which were in the refrigerator so they were cold) over the bowl. Grating it saved me a TON of time when mixing. I mixed it all up with a fork until the margarine was mixed into the flour. When it looked like coarse crumbs, I added one tablespoon of ice water. I mixed it until it was absorbed, and then added another tablespoon. I kept doing this until the entire mixture stuck together in a big ball shape, but I don't remember how many tablespoons I used. It never got sticky...I didn't even have to use flour on my hands to take it out of the bowl. I wrapped the ball in plastic wrap and stuck it in the freezer.

Next, I cut up the chicken breasts, and combined them with the canned veggies in a pot. I added one Maggi chicken flavor cube, covered all of it with water, and put it on to boil.

After all of that, I took the ball of dough from the freezer, rolled out 2 crusts on my dough mat, and put one into the greased pie pan. It was super easy to do since it was cold...and it never stuck to my hands or rolling pin!

I took the chicken/veggie mix off the stove, drained it, and put it in the bottom of the pie crust. Then I poured the sauce mixture on top. It filled perfectly to the top of the crust. (FYI, I was a little worried that it was too runny, but it turned out to be the perfect consistency in the end.)

I put the second pie crust on top, pinched the sides, and baked it at 425 degrees F for 35 minutes.

It took about 2.5 hours to do the whole thing, but I'm thinking it will go faster the next time. And anyway, it was totally worth it. It was incredible. And it's good heated up the next day too! Yummmm.