Ad Hoc at Home: Chicken Pot Pie

The family style recipes in the Ad Hoc cookbook are, surprisingly enough, a very nice change of pace from the uber fancy preparations of Alinea and French Laundry.  Chicken Pot Pie is one of the perfect family style dishes that most every red blooded American loves.  Given that Thomas Keller is the owner of Ad Hoc this is obviously a little more fancy version of the classic but it was still delicious.

The first step was to make the dough, butter salt, and flour and a bit of water to bind everything together.  Once combined it went into the fridge until I was ready to use it.

The first hit of vegetables included pearl onions and carrots, flavored with some bay leaves and peppercorns.  All the ingredients were boiled together until tender for about 10 minutes then set aside to cool.

The second round of vegetables included celery which were boiled in a separate pot of water until tender.

I took half the dough and rolled it out for the base of the pie and put it in the pie dish.

The sauce that went inside the pie was a bechamel which was is a combination of milk, flour and butter.

I made a roux out of equal parts of the flour and butter.

Once the roux had cooked down for a little bit I added the milk and let the whole mixture cook for about 45 minutes.

A chicken pot pie wouldn't be anything without a chicken.  I bought a whole roasted rotisserie chicken from Fresh Market here in town and chopped down enough of it to go in with the vegetables for the pie filling.  The egg in the picture was beaten to be used as an egg wash on the top of the pie.

I added salt, pepper, thyme, parsley and cayenne to the final bechamel for the last bit of flavoring.  This went into the bottom pie shell with the cooked vegetables.

I topped the bottom shell with the top and brushed it with the egg wash and put it into the oven for about an hour.

And the completed pot pie.  It was delicious, though I wish I had put in some potatoes.