Having roasted a couple of chickens last night for dinner, and only having eaten about half of the meat, and the weather being chilly, chicken pot pies were a natural on the menu for today.
We always have reduced chicken stock available (I make a big pot of stock, strain it, and then reduce it down until it is almost a jelly --- ten cups reduced to one cup, or so: then I freeze it in a saucepan, remove it, and cut it into one ounce chunks: whenever I need a cup of chicken stock I pull out a chunk and dissolve it in hot water: it makes making really great rice easy), so I simmered some carrots, and celery in stock for a while, added some frozen peas and corn, cubes of leftover chicken, added salt, pepper and about half a cup of heavy cream, and filled a pie.
I am so glad that I finally discovered how to make great pastry: for years this was something I'd try every few months, fail, and vow to try again someday.
Then I discovered cutting cold butter into small cubes (about 100 cubes from
a stick, which sounds a lot, but three slices along the length in each direction, then cutting into 10 or twelve pieces crosswise gives you that many) and for a savoury dough, replacing a quarter of the butter with lard, tossing it all with flour, and throwing it in the freezer for an hour before using a food processor to make the dough makes it easy.
6 oz cold butter, cut into small cubes
2 oz lard
2 cups all purpose flour
teaspoon or so of salt
1/3 cup of ice cold water
Toss the cubed butter and the lard with the sifted flour into the bowl of the food processor (with the blade in the bowl): put the whole lot in the freezer for an hour.
Pulse a few times, add most of the water, pulse again a few times, check if it is coming together, and if not, add a little more water. Pulse again.
Turn out onto plastic wrap, gather into two equal-ish piles, and press together to form two rounds of dough: wrap up in plastic wrap and press and shape into two rounds a few inches across, and less than half an inch thick. Refrigerate for half an hour or an hour or so.
Roll out into two circles to fit a nine inch pie plate. Etc.
It tasted good.
Yours, feeling flaky,
N.
Yes yes yes on the chopping of very cold butter and lard (or shortening for those too chicken to use lard). I found that it took my awesome pie crusts to the next level of awesomeness.
ReplyDeleteMm, that's just what I could do with right now! A warm and comforting chicken pie. A pity I'm at work then. RT
ReplyDeleteBelieve it or else, lard is healthier than butter.
ReplyDeleteHard to find good (i.e. "leaf")lard, though.
-J.
Of course, being in the back end of a small backwater here, the only lard we can get is in the green plastic tub --- but at least it does the job.
ReplyDeleteThe substitution of lard for butter is something that I'd not dream of doing for a sweet pastry, though.
Unless Jacques Pepin told me to.
N.
Sounds delicious! I'm going to make a note of it.
ReplyDelete