Chicken Pot Pie

This is the best chicken pot pie I've ever eaten.
The recipe was requested so I decided I'd make it a whole blog post so that it would look like I'm not neglecting my blog entirely.

So. This pie is adapted from a Moravian Chicken Pie from Cook's Country.
The chicken pie is just chicken, no veggies, and it is SO delicious.
But I've adapted it a little to suit my tastes but my brothers always ask for vegetables so I sometimes adapt the already adapted recipe to accommodate them.
It is an extremely labor-intensive meal. But it is WELL worth it.


Ingredients:

For crust:

1/2 C sour cream
1 Large egg
2 1/2 C flour
1 1/2 Tsp Salt
12 Tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) cold butter, chopped or sliced into pieces

For pie:

Salt, pepper
Olive oil
3 cups chicken broth
1 bay leaf
Lemon thyme
3 tbs butter
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup half and half
2 large chicken breasts
1 large potato, chopped
1 large celery stalk, chopped
1 handful of chopped carrots
and peas
1 egg


Make the crust ahead of time, it will have to refrigerate up to 1.30 hours and take a while to make.

The crust:
Start by putting flour and salt in the bowl to make crust dough. Cut in the butter. In a measuring cup, mix together sour cream and egg then add that to the flour, stirring to form a dough. If the dough is dry, you may need to add a little cold water, up to half a cup.

Separate dough in two and form into discs, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for an hour.
Take dough out of fridge and let warm to room temp. Form into a ball (I find it easier to make a round shape if I do) and roll out and put in the pie plate, and then roll out the top part and put on plastic. Put both pieces in the fridge for another 30 minutes.
Take out and let get to room temp before filling.
(Now, if I'm in a hurry, I'll put them in the freezer and sometimes I don't even let them get to room temp, it doesn't seem to make much of a difference)


For filling:

Drizzle oil on bottom of a pot (like a dutch oven, something you can fry in but also boil in).
Pat chicken dry and sprinkle with salt, pepper and lemon thyme.
Fry chicken on all sides until golden brown.
Add broth, bay leaf and veggies (minus the peas) and simmer. When chicken is fully cooked, remove from pot to let cool then cut up into small pieces and put in a large bowl.
When veggies are mostly cool, strain the broth into a bowl and put veggies in bowl with chicken, add peas.
Put butter and flour in the pot to make a roux. Add 2 cups of the reserved broth and half and half. Stir and season with salt and pepper.
Take 1 cup of the gravy and pour it over chicken and vegetables, stir well. Pour mixture into pie.
Top the pie and fold the top layer UNDER the bottom layer then lightly crimp. Put a slight or two in the top then brush the crust with a beaten egg (just an egg, nothing else).

Finally, but in a 450° oven for 18-20 minutes. When time is up, let out some heat, and turn the oven the 375° 10-15 minutes. Finally, take the pie out and let cool, they say for 45 minutes but I eat it pretty much right away. The only thing is, if you let it cool it will set and the filling will not fall out all over the place.

To serve, heat the leftover gravy with the remaining broth and pour over servings of pie.
Sometimes I don't have enough brother leftover so I add a little extra canned broth, it's just fine.

ENJOY!