Chicken Pot Pie, Part Two: Something Clever Regarding Pie

Welcome back! It's Day 2 of our little project, and while this stage requires more work, we don't have to wait four hours for it's conclusion. Forgive the size of the pictures today; I was in a hurry, so everything came out blurry. Hey, that rhymed. I'm so clever. Anyway, smaller pictures are forgiving, so you'll have to deal with 400x300 imaging for this round.

Now that we have assembled our stock, our chicken meat, and our schmaltz, it's time to put them to work. But first, our mise en place!

(of course, for those of you qui ne parle pas le francais, that means "stuff we's gon toss into other stuff.)

Behold, our vegetation!

Nothing exciting here. Yes, those pearl onions and peas are frozen. They're easier to work with. Also, as a side note, nomming on a frozen onion is not as good an idea as it sounds. Onionsicles = thumbs down.

Other flavorants?

Mmm. Next to the garlic, you can see some grated ginger. I love ginger in any sort of chicken soupish application. Try it, you'll see what I mean. Can't identify the powdered stuff? I don't blame you, the picture sucks. That's dried thyme, ground allspice, and fresh-grated nutmeg. Not in that order, though.

Now that we've got all our ducks in a row, let's hop to the action. Chicken pot pie gravy, like all good thickened-broth things, starts with a roux. And a roux, as you all know, is equal parts fat and flour...

(in tonight's performance, the part of fat will be played by schmaltz, bolstered with butter.)

...mixed together over low heat until it tans into a pasty concoction.

To this, we add, in order, two quarts of stock, a healthy dose of salt and pepper, the spices and whatnot, and the vegetation. Bring all this to a boil, and you've got:

Soup! Gravy, technically, but whatever. Regardless of what you want to call it, we still have to stir in one last ingredient.

Fare thee well, Murray. You have served us nobly. Now get in there.

Whew. Fun times. Now just ladle into a big ol' baking dish...

Top with rounds of puff pastry...

And bake! And if you've been a really good boy/girl, Santa will swap out that gooey mess you put into the oven for this:

Ta da! And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the story of my first attempt at chicken pot pie. I'll be honest, it was a bit of a disappointment in places. The gravy was far too watery, the puff circles were limp and flat. But it still tasted darn good. And the recipe had a lot of soup left over... I think I'm going to freeze it and take another swing at this in the future. A little extra thickening, some fancier puff pastry work, and I think I'm there.

Cheers, kids. I'll see you on the morrow. I think.

More Assembly Foods

I know, I know. I've been slacking. It's been a week. But seriously, I've been having difficulty being culinarily creative lately, in part due to my severe Mass Effect addiction. Ever since Mass Effect 2 has been announced, I've been on a mission to make sure the characters I port over into the next installment of galactic drama are friggin' perfect. As a result, I've been sticking to the basics. I mean, yes, beer-brined pork chops with roasted potatoes are delicious, but who wants to watch me make them?

But enough about my nerdish addictions. I've been thinking lately about presentation, how we eat with our eyes first. And I realized that in the course of making food, there are times where the product looks awful. Today, I will study one such food: the pizza roll/stromboli/stuffed bread. Someone should get around to standardizing the term for this thing.

Has anyone out there actually gotten the Pillsbury Pizza Crust in a can? it looks pretty nasty. All off-white and sticky and rectangular. I tried rolling it into a sphere once, so I could reshape it into a disc. I failed miserably. However, the rectangular shape is ideal for what we need it for today. Though really, if you get the chance to make your own dough or pick up a ball from your local pizzaria, go for it. Pillsbury ain't bad, but I imagine anything else would be better - I'm just lazy today. Here, I have the dough stretched out in some sort of mishappen quadrangle.


Note the dollar for size reference. It's surprisingly large, this hunk of gooish dough. This is what I'm talking about in terms of appearances. This is kind of gross. Basic, but gross.

The assembly process isn't hard from here.


I just layered cheese, sopressata, spinach, and capricola on top of the dough, taking the time to squish down the spinach as I did. After all, the spinach was going to lose moisture and shrink as it cooked, so we want to minimize that. Yes, I could have avoided that by wilting the spinach down before I put the layer down, but what do I look like, a guy that isn't lazy? Anyway. At this point, all the layers actually look pretty on top of that pallid palate of pizza dough. But it's not hard to go from this:


(Ooo. More fontina!)

To this:


Again, with the dollar for size reference. Tell me that doesn't look like a palette-swapped dinosaur turd covered in parmesan. It's that weird, football-on-a-pasta-binge look to it that's less than appealing. It doesn't even look good when it's done cooking.


Bleah. No, this is not a visually appealing dish... until you cut it open.


Take a look at that. That's all cured meat and spinach and cheesy goodness, all rolled up in an easy-to-eat crust. So let that be a lesson to you.

Okay, so I'm not really sure where I'm going with that. Ugly food is tasty food, too! Now leave me alone, I have a headache.

Baked Ziti

Growing up, baked ziti was one of the recipes that my brothers and I picked up pretty quickly. The principle was simple - a jar of tomato sauce, some meat, whatever veggies are on hand, some ricotta mixed in. Mix it all up with a pound of ziti, pour it out into a baking dish, and top with mozzarella. Throw it into the oven and bake until the cheese melts and the pasta gets all bubbly. Mmm.


Of course, the important part of baked ziti is waiting for a few minutes to let the pasta cool down and set. Traditionally, I have a history of being the guy that just crams hot food into my mouth with no regard for temperature, but this was enough to dissuade me:


I've always had a soft spot in my heart for baked pasta dishes. They were the stuff of family dinners growing up; just thinking about it conjures up memories of everyone shuffling into the kitchen, grabbing a bowlful of the stuff and sitting down to eat, chattering and laughing as we ate. So it was only appropriate this weekend, hanging out with Kuya and Angela, Paul and Andy and Tatay, all of us sitting around the kitchen table, laughing and goofing off with big ol' bowls of ziti.


You see that? That's what a bowl of family looks like.

Cheers, guys. Until next time.