"I loathe chicken pot pies!" said my friend, "those disgusting little green peas, that gloppy yellow snot, the salty and greasy pastry. Disgusting things, chicken pot pies. They make me want to puke."
A bit of of gentle cross-examination revealed that it was mostly the peas that were yanking his chain so firmly. I can't say I blame him; frozen peas are a tough sell under the best of circumstances, but when they've been floating around in thickened chicken stock, then re-frozen, then re-thawed and cooked for far too long…well. They're not really vegetables at all by that point, just dabs of green mush.
Even allowing that most chicken pot pies of yesteryear—I'm thinking Swanson's here—weren't anything to write home about, I think my friend has a point beyond the pea thing. It's probably not possible to create a decent pot pie that can be frozen and then cooked all in one piece. A pot pie contains various ingredients at various stages of preparation, and they really don't take to being plopped together and subjected to the same amount of heat for the same length of time. Not to mention that I have qualms about meats such as chicken being in such close proximity to pastries and their accompanying oils for more time than absolutely necessary.
A pea-free and enticing chicken pot pie can be made at home without too much difficulty. The only part that's likely to pose a challenge is the pastry itself, but that's easy to finesse. I prefer to make my chicken pot pie using classic puff pastry, but I will put myself through the purgatory of making puff pastry when pigs roost in trees, icicles sprout in hell, and Rick Santorum starts doing Judy Garland impersonations. Pastry of all sorts can be had in the freezer section of one's handy-dandy grocery store, from nanny-approved whole wheat stuff to decadent and nanny-condemned puff pastry.
So here's my take on the thing. It's an indestructable recipe so don't worry if you don't have something. Just use what you've got. That's the whole point of pot pies, after all—historically they're leftover gambits.
Step One: pour a container of chicken stock into a saucepan. Add a boned skinned chicken half-breast and one little airline-sized bottle of dry white wine. Cheap champagne works well. Depending on the stock you might add a touch of salt. Bring it to a boil, turn down the heat, and let it simmer while you do the rest.
Step Two: prepare your pastry. My choice is frozen puff pastry, thawed a bit. Extravagant but yummy. You could buy a frozen pie crust, let it thaw a bit, and flatten it out. Or you can make pie crust if you prefer. My technique is to cut the puff pastry into rectangles, about 2 x 3 inches. Or just use a whole pie crust. Put the pastry on a baking sheet (use parchment paper underneath if you have some; it helps) and then bake the pastry about halfway through. That's going to be about 10 minutes in a 400 degree oven. Don't get weird about the timing. Just give it a good noodge past the raw stage.
Variant: use mashed potatoes instead. If you do, skip Step Two altogether.
Step Three: while the pastry's cooking, chop up about a half an onion, 2-3 stalks of celery and a carrot or two. You want about 1 – 2 cups of veggies. Slice up some mushrooms — about enough for 1/2 to 1 cup.
Step Four: in a small pan melt some butter and drop in your sliced mushrooms. As they cook down, squeeze in about 1/4 teaspoon of tomato paste (just a dab, in other words) and sprinkle some Worcestershire over it. Cook those mushrooms all the way down — they'll get kinda crusty gold. While they're cooking, go to Step Five.
Step Five: put about six tablespoons of cooking oil (not olive!) into a heavy-bottomed skilled. Add about six tablespoons of flour. Crank up the heat; stir the flour and oil together. This is a roux. Keep it moving; don't let it just sit there because it will burn. After a bit it will start browning. Let it get to the light brown stage, kind of beige actually, and dump in the chopped onion, celery, and carrot. That will stop the roux from cooking any more. Turn down the heat and let the veggies sauté for a while in the roux.
Note: somewhere around this time you'll probably need to take the pastry out of the oven. Don't forget about it!
Step Six: turn the heat back up to full under the veggie-roux mixture. Dump about 3 cups of the stock (you've been simmering the chicken breast in there, remember) into the pan with the veggies and roux. It's going to steam and bubble like mad. Stir it up good as it boils. If it's too thick, add more stock. Too thin, let it keep boiling and it will reduce. Check the seasoning; you'll probably need more salt. Some pepper, a few dashes of Worcestershire and hot pepper sauce (if you have some) will also help. You can leave it simmering lightly on the stove if you want.
Step Seven: Dump the cooked mushrooms and the chopped or shredded chicken breast into the gravy.
Step Eight: optional, but I think it makes a big difference: stir in about 1/2 cup of creme fraiche. If you don't have that, you can use regular cream — but in that case, start with the creme in a separate bowl and mix in some of the gravy gradually first, so the creme doesn't separate when it hits the hot gravy.
Step Nine: dump the finished gravy-and-chicken mix into a baking dish; I recommend one that's bigger horizontally than vertically so there's a lot of surface exposed. Cover the top of the dish with the half-cooked pastry. If you've used a regular pie crust, just break it into pieces with your hands and drop those all over the top. You can even wedge them in there diagonally if you want, the pieces sticking up like fins. If you're gone my route and made puff pastry rectangles, line them up on the top. Don't try to cover the whole; leave some gravy showing.
Step Ten: bake the whole thing, uncovered, in a 375 to 400-degree oven for about twenty minutes. Don't let the pastry over-bake.
The advantage to such a chicken pot pie is that everything has been cooked just as much as it needs and no more. The final baking is just a heat-through and pastry topping-off operation. It bears the same relationship to a Swanson's or Marie Callender's pot pie as a Porche bears to a Yugo, you can do Steps 1 through 8 way ahead of time, and this one recipe will serve 6 people easily if you add a nice salad.
And nary a pea in sight.