geli wrote:An English friend of mine makes shepherd's pie without either a crust on the top or the bottom--just mashed potatoes baked on top. So maybe not all English versions of pot pie have crusts either!

I've had Shepherd's Pie with mashed potatoes several times, but I don't think Shepherd's Pie is a pot pie, is it?

Fun Fact: Keith Richards has Shepherd's Pie everyday! It's a fact!

Hammond

Fun Fact: Keith Richards has Shepherd's Pie everyday! It's a fact!

Ahh, the anti-aging properties of Shepherd's Pie!

c8w wrote:As mentioned above, there is the Swasons. Then the Marie Callenders
(which is better), and Pepperidge Farm as you mention above. Both
these are better than Swanson's, but still not great -t hey are frozen,
after all.

In the frozen pie area, the best I've had are the now apparently unobtainable Aussie Pies, which are really more like pasties, but I like the Stouffer's pot pies much better than Marie Callender's.

David Hammond wrote:I don't think Shepherd's Pie is a pot pie, is it?

No, more like a casserole. And if you want to get into misnamed menu items, why is it that almost every restaurant here that makes "shepherd's pie" uses beef? If it's shepherd's pie, it ought to be made from lamb. The dish made with beef is "cottage pie."

Frito pie isn't really pie either.

Any former Californians lurking? When I was growing up in Central CA (and even through college) there was a family-owned chain called simply, The Chicken Pot Pie Shop. And yes, they had crust all around. You could get a chicken pot pie solo for 99 cents or you could get the dinner, which included soup, a yeasty roll, and steamed veggies which always cracked my mom up because it was the exact same frozen veggies that appeared inside the cpp. I loved the yellow gravy, it was not gloppy but it was also a little salty. The crusts weren't that flaky but the pies overall always tasted the same and to a kid, consistency is king.

The restaurant was a very orange vinyl booth big beehive coffee shop kind of a place and we adored being taken there by my mom. You could buy the pies frozen to take home, which my mother would do. When I headed down south to San Diego for undergrad, I was delighted to find a Chicken Pot Pie Shop in the Hillcrest neighborhood. It was sort of tired and fading, mostly full of shaky old people but you could still get a pot pie for the whopping price of $1.99. They hadn't tweaked the recipe one bit. I believe it has since closed.

I thought of a friend said that Valoi's in Hyde Park serves a proper cpp once a week, but I've never seen it, but then again, I don't go to Valoi's that often. I'm heading to Manny's tomorrow! Also, my husband bought a cpp from Trader Joe's last week, but I wasn't around when he ate it. Maybe I'll try one . . .

bjt

What could be better than a chicken pot pie? Crisp and soft, meat and vegetable, dry and moist, balanced on a fork.

Tonight, the Wife came through with an excellent rendition of chicken pot pie. With a chicken baked before blending into the mix of vegetables with sage and other herbs, cuddled (top, bottom and sides) in a homemade crust, it was everything I dreamed of.



Still, tomorrow, I will check out Manny’s version, which I understand is also quite good.

Hammond

HI,

Chicago Sun Times food section has an article today on Chicken Pot pie. The recipe begins with frozen puff pastry, which you cut to size for the iron skillet. No fussin' with a bottom crust there.

Your wife's chicken pot pie is the stuff dreams are made of. I look forward to your evaluation of Manny's.

Regards,

Honestly, for pot pie in a pinch, (oh, the alliteration!), you could do worse than Boston Market. They have the requisite two-crust format and sauce isn't too terribly gloppy.
They have pot pies ready to go at Whole Foods as well- not frozen, but near the salad bar/deli counter area. Can't vouche for their taste but they have the two crusts you are hankering for.
In the frozen vein, Amy's makes a pretty good frozen "Country Vegetable" pot pie-- so long as you heat it in the oven, not the toaster. Its of the single-serving size variety and has some good veggies in a slightly parmesan-y sauce. And, unlike Marie Callender or Swanson, its not full of things that will kill you, nor will it be your weeks worth of calories and saturated fat.

Had the pleasure of lunch today with the illustrious SteveZ, who turned me on to the Wednesday special pot pie at Manny's, which is quite definitely a higher-end rendition of the Swanson versions I enjoyed as a yute. The time-honored goopy sauce is minimized to make room for the contents, which are layered into the pie in this order: 1) peas and carrots, 2) plump chunks of chicken, 3) lots of potato (perhaps a little too much potato).

Good as this version was, I tend to hand the Palm de Pie to The Wife, who gets points for more complete integration of components and a deft hand with herbs.

The herbal element with such pies is not to be discounted; when cooking all ingredients together under a crust, careful use of sage etc., can have a quite significant impact upon the final flavor profile. Way to go, Wife.

Hammond

Hammond,

Following an unexpected lunch at the consistently good Shui Wah in Chinatown Sq. Mall, we stepped into St. Anna Bakery a few doors down. The friend of mine who dropped in for a few hours from Milwaukee picked up a half dozen char siu bao (baked) for his kids, as he always does. Just as we were leaving, my eyes fell on


A quick (surreptitious) picture and I asked one lady behind the counter if it had pastry underneath. Another Chinese lady was summoned, and I repeated my query. I was told that it had chicken and vegetables in the pie.

"Yes, but does it have the pastry, the cover, underneath?" upon which she looked at me in a what's-with-the-strange-questions-look (but in a gentle smiley way), reached in, took one out and proceeded to turn it out of its foil pan.

"Ees Chicken pot pie!" she said, as it lay upside down on the counter reveling a perfectly browned bottom pastry shell.

Her tone and the way she stressed the words seemed to make it plain that the bottom shell was obvious. Reassured that all is not lost in the culinary quagmire that posits a bottom-crust-less pot pie, I thanked her and left.
(Had I not been so full, I would have had the sense to pick up a post-prandial pie. As it is I don’t have any more information on the pie itself.)


St. Anna Bakery & Cafe
2158 S. Archer Ave., Chicago
Tel: (312) 225-3168


-----

dickson wrote: I rather think a pot pie as served in the US is an English "invention" (though not without precedents in many, many other regions and cuisines). And the version most often served as Pub food does have a bottom crust. I think that is where it comes from.
<snip>
It should be noted that while the full crust is a general characteristic of the British Pub Pot Pie, the gloppy filling is not - steak & kidney anyone? As I recall, more often the filling is in a brown sauce, though this can vary.

I'd love to have some steak & kidney pie. The last time I had it, I made it myself (following Mrs. Beeton; store bought pastry shells) and that was a long time ago. In an Edinburgh pub I could only get steak pie (not memorable)



Anywhere here you can get it? Should I just look in places where I can get fish and chips?

sazerac,

Great story. It's pot pie, POT pie, P-O-T, get it?! I wish more chicken pot pie makers felt that way.

I appreciate the recon; I'll drop in St. Anna next time I'm on the mall.

Hammond

Frozen pot pies at Trader Joe's have top crust only. Tasty, as such things go, but no bottom crust

HI,

Since this thread has popped up, this is the Chicken Pot Pie offered at Celtic Knot in Evanston:



If this was Old House Journal and a remodelled building, this chicken pot pie would be on the 'Remuddled' page in the rear featuring remodels gone bad. The puff pastry thing is just so obvious an add-on giving this dish a real top heavy look, though we know puff pastry is light as air. The filling underneath was well seasoned with lots of chunks of chicken, which would have tasted even better encased in a proper crust.

Please note I do like Celtic Knot, I just thought this was a brilliant example of what Hammond was talking about.

Regards,

Given the turn in the weather, I was craving a chicken pot pie. I'm eating one right now from Boston Market. While the puff-pastry-on-top isn't my favorite kind of pot pie, this one is really good. It has big chunks of carrots, potatoes with the skins on, green beans, peas, and lots of chicken. The Boston Market on Rte 59 in Aurora is going to be on my way home on upcoming cold and snowy nights.

Couple things:

1) Costco pot pies are indeed very good. I'm speaking of the in-house made pot pies, not the MarieCallenders. They were at the Damen location last night - along with a sample cart to give it a taste. These have a cross-hatched pie-top and full bottom crust.

2) I'm in love with an Ina Garten recipe for "pot pie" - quotes stressed. It uses biscuits instead of a pie-top. It's in the Barefoot Contessa Family Style cookbook...

It does seem to be pot pie weather, doesn't it? I've got some left over roast chicken and I think I just found a use for it. Does anyone have a good CPP recipe they wouldn't mind sharing?

over at the blog "simply recipes" she has a wonderful tutorial (with very helpful photos) on making chicken pot pies from scratch which include both a bottom and a "lid" of real pie dough. (Hurrah!) And the recipe is from the Marshall Field's Cookbook--so we can keep marshall Field's alive in our bellies of nothing else. Anyhow, the address is www.elise.com/recipes

it's from October 25th if you search.

bjt

bjt wrote:over at the blog "simply recipes" she has a wonderful tutorial (with very helpful photos) on making chicken pot pies from scratch which include both a bottom and a "lid" of real pie dough. (Hurrah!) And the recipe is from the Marshall Field's Cookbook--so we can keep marshall Field's alive in our bellies of nothing else. Anyhow, the address is www.elise.com/recipes

it's from October 25th if you search.

bjt

I found this recipe the other day and I am in the middle of making it right now. I made the crust yesterday and I'm assembling and cooking everything tonight. The only thing is, this recipe is for a single (top) crust only. Once I make it as written as a baseline reference (well, I'm going to add my own seasonings, at least), I'll probably make a double crust version next time.

Update:

I made the CPP last night according to the Marshall Field's recipe. Flavor wise, it was a raging success. I am a pastry-making virgin and this was my first ever attempt at a pie crust. The crust came out extremely tender and flaky. I couldn't have hoped for better (especially for a first try), but I think I rolled it out too thin and it was a bit tough to handle (it probably warmed up too much while I was dinking around). Aesthetically, I'd say I need some more work on my crust application/decoration skills before I am ready to post any pictures. That didn't stop us from eating and enjoying the dish, though.

thanks for the update, hey, from the recipe the chicken part of the pie looked sort of labor intensive, what with pulling off the meat and making your own stock and such . . . was it worth the effort for the filling?

bjt

stevez wrote:Update:

I made the CPP last night according to the Marshall Field's recipe. Flavor wise, it was a raging success. I am a pastry-making virgin and this was my first ever attempt at a pie crust. The crust came out extremely tender and flaky. I couldn't have hoped for better (especially for a first try), but I think I rolled it out too thin and it was a bit tough to handle (it probably warmed up too much while I was dinking around). Aesthetically, I'd say I need some more work on my crust application/decoration skills before I am ready to post any pictures. That didn't stop us from eating and enjoying the dish, though.

Stevez,

I notice the recipe you used calls for fresh veggies, which is definitely the way I would go, but The Wife made the point that tiny cubed frozen vegetables are the "traditional" way to go. True, perhaps, but not my inclination...still, her pie was fabulous.

Fun fact: Clarence Birdseye, the genius who perfected the process for freezing veggies, sold his patent to General Foods for $22 milliion in 1929-- when a million was a life-changing amount of money: http://tinyurl.com/yjpmfu

Decoration skills?

bjt wrote:thanks for the update, hey, from the recipe the chicken part of the pie looked sort of labor intensive, what with pulling off the meat and making your own stock and such . . . was it worth the effort for the filling?

bjt

Labor intensive, but worth every minute. Actually, I used a previously roasted chicken for the chicken part and used some stock that I already had in the freezer. I'm sure you could easily get by with a high quality store-bought chicken stock. Cooks Illustrated rates Swanson Certified Organic Chicken Broth very highly. It's available at Jewel.

ab wrote:Costco pot pies are indeed very good. I'm speaking of the in-house made pot pies, not the MarieCallenders. They were at the Damen location last night - along with a sample cart to give it a taste. These have a cross-hatched pie-top and full bottom crust.

I saw these, but they are HUGE! I want a 1-2 person serving size, not enough for an army!

David Hammond wrote:I notice the recipe you used calls for fresh veggies, which is definitely the way I would go, but The Wife made the point that tiny cubed frozen vegetables are the "traditional" way to go.

I thought the larger chunks of veggies along with the big chunks of chicken that I used worked well, but next time I might try dicing everything smaller in the interest of more ingredients/bite.

David Hammond wrote:Decoration skills?

I'd like it to have beautiful, uniform scalloped edges instead of looking like a bed that has just been made by a teenage boy.

I always hated the Swanson pot pies my mother would occasionally serve.

I kind of like the idea of a pot pie now....but only if it is made well. Actually the frozen Marie Callender's pies are pretty good. White meat chicken only with peas, carrots and potato chunks in a tasty sauce. It has crust all around and if you bake it correctly, it will be crisp. You can microwave it partially to speed up cooking time and then pop it in the oven on a cookie sheet to crisp up the crust. I like the regular chicken but not any of the new fangled flavors. Target carries the Callender pies as well as most grocery stores.

I also hear the Costco pie is good. I had the pot pie at the Cracker Barrel restaurant and was looking to see if it was good. It was very bland and had the crust only on the top. The point of a pot pie besides the vegetables and meat is the crust mingled with the sauce that should not be pasty but tasty. Frankly, Marie Callendar's frozen pie was better than the freshly made pie at the Cracker Barrel.

Well, I found a really good double-crush pot pie. It's at Cullen's bar on Southport. The pie had a good bit of nice big chunks of chicken (primarily, if not all, white meat). It came out PIPING hot. Solid gravy w/ peas, some onions, potato. I was quite a big meal. Top crust was nice and flaky. I highly recommend.

David Hammond wrote:Pie (or so I believe) is something with a surrounding crust and a filling, and the filling is cooked INSIDE the pie crust (or at least WITH the pie crust – there is a pot pie tradition of pouring dough over the “filling” and baking it on top, so there's cooked-on crust only on the upper portion, and I’d reluctantly settle for that).

In the Hammond camp here -- my Yankee background requires me to absolutely disavow pot pies with a puff pastry "chapeau." Puff pastry has no place on a pot pie! Having this thread in mind tonight, I whipped up a top-crust only pot pie (which Mr. Hammond would only reluctantly settle for )with leftover roast chicken and some vegetables hanging around. The crust is your average pie crust. (Top-crust only because I wanted to lighten the dish somewhat.) Surprisingly, this was not a labor-intensive dish. I deglazed the pan in which I sauteed the vegetables with sherry and thyme was my herb of choice. I was happy with the results:

Quote: Honestly, for pot pie in a pinch, (oh, the alliteration!), you could do worse than Boston Market. They have the requisite two-crust format and sauce isn't too terribly gloppy.

When I babysat my niece, she would eat the inside out of these and would try to throw away the rest. Not on my watch! It was actually quite wonderful chicken pot pie crust.

Aschie, that's stunning. Lovely.

FWIW - if you are of both the can't-stand-a-gooey bottom and need-a-top-crust schools, I once made a "scrambled-egg" pot pie by using a pre-baked bottom crust and topping the filling with a baked circle of piecrust I'd cut to fit just inside the edge of the bottom crust. It didn't look as beautiful as Aschie's pie up there, but it was pretty enough and allowed me to use a filling that would have been ruined in the oven.

BTW those mini chicken pot pies at St. Anna's are curry chicken and pretty good.

paulette wrote:David,
Watching TV last night I saw a commercial for Marie Callender Chicken Pot Pie. It was a two crusted pie so you might want to try that. Don"t know how it tasted just that on the commercial it had two crusts.
Paulette

Marie Callender's was what came to mind for me. Chicken pot pie was one of my favorite things as a kid, and a MC pot pie was a special treat, since what I really wanted (let's be honest here) was the crust. Imagine my disappointment when I finally got to eat at a real MC restaurant and found that their "pot pie" was a sadly top-crusted impostor.

I'd thought that perhaps the MC pies wouldn't be as appealing as they had been to my kid taste buds, going the way of Velveeta and Oscar Meyer weenies, but hearing other people adjudge them as tasty is heartening. I might have to pick up a couple and have a nostalgia dinner.