Curried Chicken Pot Pie

Matreya and Timo wanted to learn how to make a curry dish and we decided to make a curried chicken pot pie. This dish takes a bit of time but so very delicious. 

1 recipe of pastry (please click here to go to my recipe of how to make pastry). Store bought pastry works well too if you are not able to make the pastry. Make the pastry first, ahead of time and refrigerate for at least 1/2 an hour to chill the pastry. 

Filling for the pot pie.

1 large onion

olive oil

3 chicken breasts cut into bite size cubes

3 tbsp. curry paste (add curry to taste)

1  1/2  cups each of celery, carrots and potatoes (for this recipe I use  yellow skin potatoes and they are washed not peeled)

2 cups chicken broth

1 can coconut milk

1/2 cup white wine

6 mushrooms (optional for this recipe but adds nicely to the flavour)

small bag frozen peas (1  1/2 cups)

Method:

Preheat a large frying pan. Add 3 tbsp. olive oil. 

Sauté onions and celery first. Remove these from the pan and set aside in a bowl when the onions start to turn translucent.

Saute chicken in the same frying pan. Cook the chicken just to get some 'fond' on the bottom of the frying pan. (fond is the stuff that sticks to your pan after browning meat or vegetables) The chicken does not need to be cooked fully at this stage as it will be cooking in the oven for 50 minutes.

Add mushrooms to the chicken and continue to sauté. 

Meanwhile, In another pot, par boil the cubed potatoes. This means to boil until the potatoes just start to soften. Drain the water off the potatoes and set aside.

Remove the chicken and mushrooms from the pan and hold in a bowl.

Add 3 tbsp. oil to your hot frying pan and 1/2 cup butter. Melt butter. Add 1/2 cup flour to the butter/oil mixture.

Incorporate the flour as best you can. Then add the coconut milk and wine and continue to stir/whisk until the flour has disappeared. Use a whisk at this point to remove any lumps. Add the chicken stock and continue to stir to deglaze the pan.  The sauce will thicken at this point. Cook the sauce for 5 minutes stirring constantly.

Add chicken, mushrooms, carrots, peas, onions, celery, and potatoes to the cooking sauce. Stir well and allow to simmer for 15 minutes to par cook the vegetables. Stir when needed to keep the sauce from burning.

Line a deep casserole dish with pastry. Brush the raw pastry with egg white to seal it. This will help to keep the pastry flaky. 

Pour in the curry chicken filling and top with pastry. Matreya and Timo decided to do a 'lattice' top for their pot pie and they did a marvellous job.

Egg wash the pastry topping and bake in a preheated oven (400 degrees) for 45-50 minutes. The filling will be bubbling at this point.

Remove from the oven and allow to rest for 15 minutes before serving. 

 

Timo's choice is to learn how to do a 'lattice' top...lots of fun