Chicken Pot Pie is the ultimate use of leftovers from a chicken dinner -- just stick your leftover roasted vegetables and chicken in a white sauce, throw a crust on it, and voila! But let's face it, it's BO-ring.
That all ended for me this week, when I had two leftover breasts from this jerk chicken recipe. Wow! A little heat, a ton of those aromatic, tangy jerk flavors. We'll never go back.
Ingredients
For the filling:
3 tablespoons butter
1 small onion, minced
3 tablespoons flour
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 cups chicken broth
1 cup milk
2 cups diced, cooked chicken
2 cups cooked vegetables -- I usually use a mixture of potatoes, carrots, corn, and green peas
1 cup sliced mushrooms (you can also use dried mushrooms, which are nice because they soak up some of the liquid)
1 tablespoon jerk seasoning, or to taste (see note, below)
1/2 teaspoon thyme
salt and pepper to taste
For the biscuit:
I prefer a biscuit dough to a pastry crust on my pot pies, but you can easily substitute your favorite pate brisee or puff pastry if you prefer.
2 c flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 tsp thyme, 1 tsp sage, 1 tsp chopped chives, 1 tsp chopped parsley (optional)
1/2 cup melted butter
1 cup buttermilk or 3/4 cup milk and 1/4 cup yogurt
Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees F.
To make the filling, melt the butter in a large dutch oven or heavy-bottomed pot, and saute the onions gently for a couple of minutes on medium heat, until they get a little transparent. Add the flour and whisk to make a roux -- just until it's begun to brown a bit. Add the garlic, and then whisk in the broth, a little at a time, to avoid lumps. Add the milk the same way. Continue to stir over medium heat until the sauce has thickened. Add the chicken, vegetables, mushrooms, and seasonings to taste. All jerk seasonings are different, so make sure you adjust the amount to a level that you like.
If you want to, you can at this point transfer the filling to a buttered baking dish (about 9x9), or if you aren't serving the whole thing at the table you can just leave it in the dutch oven and put the biscuits on top and put it in the oven. If you use a baking dish, you want the filling to be about 1 1/2-2 inches thick, and have at least 1-2 inches to spare at the top, so the filling doesn't spill over.
To make the biscuits, mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, garlic powder, and salt in a bowl. Stir in the shredded cheese and whatever herbs you're using. Add the melted butter and buttermilk and mix until it pulls together. I usually give it a knead or two in the bowl, but don't overmix it. Pat it out onto a floured board and cut out enough rounds to cover the filling in your baking dish. Or you can just roll it out to fit the whole dish, if you prefer that look. Just make sure you leave some holes for the filling to bubble up when the biscuits rise.
Bake for 20 minutes or until the tops of the biscuits are browned.
You can also freeze the whole pot pie, unbaked. When you take it out, put it in a cold oven (so the dish doesn't crack). Set the oven on 375 and cover the pie with aluminum foil for 30 minutes. Then remove the foil and bake another 30 minutes, or until the filling is bubbling and the biscuits look done. Time will depend on the size of the pie.
Note: There are different ways of introducing the jerk spice into this dish. In order of preference: you can just chop up leftover jerk chicken, as I did, or you can make a jerk marinade and marinate chicken and grill or saute it, or you can simply mix 1 tablespoon of a prepared jerk seasoning into the white sauce.
