Start with a whole chicken...
Blame it on the wife...
A few days ago, my wife made an awesome meatloaf, and used it as a bribe to get me to make homemade chicken pot pies. I had made them for her about a year ago, and not only her, but one of her friends have been bugging me to make them again every since. The thing about making them for me is I make them from scratch, and it is quite the process. Not only that, but you also end up with a LOT of filling, which means a lot of pies. Well since I didn't want to make a bunch of pie crust, I decided to can the filling I had left this time, as well as the leftover chicken stock I had as well.
The Recipe...
So here is the thing about recipes, my grandma taught me how to cook from scratch, so there are only a few things that matter to me when cooking, fat to starch ratio for a rue is one, other than that, I kinda go with what seems right and tastes good, especially for a recipe like this. However, I will do my best to outline what I did here.
To cook the chicken and make the stock...
I started with a whole chicken and added the "butt" from my celery stalks, a few carrots, a whole onion cut in half, a few garlic cloves, some parsley sprigs, thyme flakes, and a whole bay leaf. I added water until the chicken was just covered, then brought it to a boil. After it reached boiling, I simmered it about forty five minutes until the chicken was done. I then removed the chicken and deboned it, then added the bones back to the stock to simmer for a few hours...
Pull the chicken out...
Deboned chicken
After about four hours of simmering the stock, I then used a colander and some cheesecloth to strain out the solids from the stock into a pitcher. I then put then pitcher in an ice bath to cool it to room temperature before putting it into the fridge to separate the fat from the stock.
Strain through cheesecloth and colander
Prepare an ice bath
Cool to room temperature
You can see the fat separate out
You want to make sure and chill the stock enough that you can skim the fat from it. You do not want fat in your stock as it can mess with making gravy later. I know my dogs loved having the chicken fat dripped over their food tonight!
Start with your hard vegetables...
For a whole chicken I used four potatoes. My wife is not a fan of peas so I do not use them in my mix, instead I use potatoes, carrots, celery, onion and garlic. I make sure to chop them small so they are cooked all the way through. The potatoes and carrots I boil for about fifteen minutes until they are semi cooked, but not mashable, then I drain them. The celery, onion, and garlic I sauté with a whole stick of butter, then I add a whole cup of flour and make my rue with it.
Make sure to chop up your potatoes small...
Make sure to chop your carrots thin as well...
Boil your potatoes and carrots...
Celery, onion and carrots...
Whole stick of butter...
Sauté!
I sautéed the celery, onion and garlic until the onion was clear and the celery was no longer crunchy. It is important to make sure the celery is done enough or you will have crunchy vegetables in your pies. No one likes that! After that is done, add a cup of four and stir it in, cook it for about a minute then add six cups of the stock, and a cup and a half of whole milk. Make sure you whish the entire time you are adding liquid so you do not get any lumps. Let it thicken until it is the consistency of cream of chicken soup, then add your potato and carrots and meat...
Stir in your flour...
Add six cups of stock and a cup and a half of milk...
Add potato and carrots...
Add your meat...
Salt and pepper to taste...
Viola!
Now that your filling is done, it is time to make your pies. I am not going to go into making homemade pie crusts in this post, and store bought ones will work fine. I did make my pie crusts from scratch, and as you can see, they came out great!
Rolling out the dough!
Bottom crust...
Add filling...
Complete your pie with a top!
Leftover stock...
