Fun with Puff Pastry - Part 4

Sorry I'm a day late with this....my day didn't go as planned yesterday.  ANY-WHO.....without further ado, may I present to you THE best Chicken Pot Pie recipe on this planet! 

Chicken Pot Pie

6 chicken breasts with skin and bone

5 cups chicken stock

2 cups par boiled carrots (medium chopped)

2 cups frozen peas

2 cups yellow onion - chopped

1 and 1/2 sticks of butter (Edit: 1 and 1/2 cups of butter)

3/4 cup flour

2 teaspoons Kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1/2 cup fresh parsley chopped (or 1/4 cup dried parsley)

1/4 cup heavy cream (or milk but heavy cream is better!)

1 package puff pastry (2 sheets) - thawed in the refrigerator

1 egg - beaten in a small bowl

Note:  You will need about 7 - 9 ramekins as the yield of this recipe is quite enough to feed a big family.

Rub chicken with evoo (extra virgin olive oil) and Kosher salt and pepper.  Bake at 350 degrees Farenheit for 1 hour or until chicken has an internal temperature of 170 degrees Farenheit.  When chicken is cooled, remove skin and bone (above), cut meat into large bite-size pieces.

Chop your parsley.  My uncle grows parsley in a small herb garden right outside his kitchen so this was fresh!

Chop carrots and bring them to a boil in a separate pot.  The purpose is to make the carrots tender.

Heat 5 cups chicken stock in medium saucepan on left).  Note:  do not bring the chicken stock to boiling. 

In a dutch oven or large stock pot (like the blue pot pictured on the right), saute the chopped onion with butter until translucent, approximately 12 minutes.  To your sauted onion mixture add the flour and stir continuously for 2 minutes. 

Add heated chicken stock and stir for 1 minute.  Add chicken pieces, softened carrots, peas, parsley, salt, pepper and heavy cream.  When thoroughly mixed, ladle mixture into oven proof ramekins and set aside.

Roll out puff pastry and cut circles 1/2 inches larger than the ramekin (Note:  it helps to have 1 extra empty ramekin for this!).  Brush egg wash around the outside edge of the ramekins and place the puff pastry on top, pressing the sides down over the ramekins into the egg wash.

Cut 3 vent holes in the top of the puff pastry for ventilation.

Brush the tops of the puff pastry with the remaining egg wash and then lightly add salt and pepper to the top (the seasoning part is not pictured here).  Note:  it helps to have heavy duty pans to place your ramekins in for cooking as they will bubble over.  These ramekins are very heavy so a flimsy cookie sheet is NOT recommended.

Bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes or until the top is golden brown and juices are bubbling from the vent holes. 

Ta-da!!!!

Extreme close-up....

We ended up with 9 ramekins' worth of Chicken Pot Pie which fed 9 people!

If you want to only do a few of these at a time, I would suggest only filling up as many ramekins as you need.  The rest of the chicken pot pie mixture can be frozen in Tupperwear-type containers for later use.

Looks like somebody couldn't finish their chicken pot pie! 

I cannot even begin to describe how wonderful this recipe is.  It is by far the best I've ever had which is saying something because previously the best chicken pot pie I'd ever had was at Disneyland at Carnation Restaurant on Main Street...something they don't make any more, unfortunately, called Mickey Pot Pie.  Anybody familiar with that?

What's for dessert?  How about a decadent Cheese Danish!!!

Tune in tomorrow to find out how to prepare it!