By Victoria Abbott aka Mary Jane Maffini
Sometimes you want something tasty and fabulous, but you
don’t have time to do everything from scratch. Sometimes you want to use up an unexpectedly large amount of leftover ingredients (don't ask!) There are solutions for both of those situations. Recently we found ourselves with
three cups of leftover chicken on a cold and wintry day. We still had half a box of puff pastry
left over from our Mushroom and Asparagus Tart with Puff Pastry recipe and so pulled together this cheerful and warming dish. My
hubby said, and I quote, “Wow!”
Like any kind of creamy filling, you could season this with
whatever your favorite flavors are. These ingredients worked well for us. At
the end, we had a large dish and enough leftover Chicken Pot Pie for a second lunch although the cunning plan had been to get rid of
leftovers. Does this ever happen to you?
The good news was that the pie reheated beautifully and the puff pastry was still puffy and not at all soggy. Victoria Maffini (the other half of Victoria Abbott) dropped in to
sample it and confirm the success.
Chicken Pot Pie With Puff Pastry
All you need is:
1 sheet puff pastry, thawed and rolled out
4 tbsp butter
4 tbsp flour
1 medium onion, chopped
S & P to taste
¾ cup chicken stock, homemade is best, but purchased is
pretty good too.
¾ cup light cream or milk (we used 5 % cream)
2 ¾ cups of cubed, cooked chicken (this was the amount we
had – a bit more or less would have been fine too)
Juice of a lemon
1 red pepper, sliced, seeded and cut into small squares
2 green onions, sliced
½ cup frozen peas, thawed
1 tbp olive oil. plus1 tbsp butter
1 tsp Worchestershire sauce
All you do is:
Thaw the pastry – remember to do it before (ahem). Thaw the
peas too. You don't need to cook them i advance, but they will add a bit of extra liquid if they're frozen when you pop them in. You have been warned.
Preheat oven to 375.
In a medium skillet heat the tablespoon butter and
tablespoon oil. Saute the red pepper and
green onion for about ten minutes.
Meanwhile, melt the 4 tbsp butter until foaming in a
medium-sized saucepan.
Add the flour and cook over medium heat until it
foaming. Cook for about two minutes,
Reduce heat if you need to keep it from browning
Add the milk, stock, lemon, Worchestershire sauce and seasonings, heat until it comes to a
boil. Reduce heat and stir until
thickened.
Stir in the chicken, peppers, green onion and peas. Add a bit more cream or stock if it's too thick. Allow to cool a bit.
Pour into a buttered baking dish. We used a 10-inch square overproof serving dish. Top with rolled out puff pastry.
Cut slits for the steam to escape or it will
become soggy. We like the look of the
slashes. You could make whatever designs you like.
Bake at 375 until the filling bubbles and the crust is
golden.
Being puff pastry, it should
puff up nicely. We baked ours for
thirty-five minutes on the lower rack and had to add five minutes. Ovens vary.
This meal started as a problem solver to get rid of leftovers, but we’ll be planning to make it regularly, even if we have to cook the chicken for it.
That shadowy entity known as Victoria Abbott is actually a
collaboration between mystery writer Mary Jane Maffini and her artist daughter, Victoria, with inspiration from Peachy the Pug, who has this to say: Hey! Why doesn't The Peach get a scarf?
They have had a lot of fun
writing their book collector mysteries and think it's a pretty tasty series. The fourth book The Marsh Madness is
available now
and the fifth The Hammett Hex will be out in October. Of course,
you could PRE-ORDER HERE!
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