Chicken Pot Pie: Cooking with Ventura County local ingredients

Big thank you to Gill’s Onions of #Oxnard for the generous onions shared with us. In our effort to enjoy #VenturaCountyGrowers and #BuyLocal businesses, we cooked a great meal with the amazing onions!

Since we received so many onions we will be cooking a few options. With a cool California night, we opted for chicken pot pie.

This recipe was inspired by Emeril Lagasse with some changes for our liking.

Here is the recipe (with some tweaks)

• 6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter
• 2 cups chopped yellow onions (we LOVE onions)NOTE: This dish has more than the traditional amount of onions that other recipes might call for. That is because I believe that onions really make the flavor and heartiness of this dish. But if you have a sensitivity to onions, you can reduce the recipe to just 1 cup of chopped onions and it will still come out just fine.
• 1 egg yolk in a ramekin with a teaspoon of water mixed in with a fork (optional)
• 1/2 cup chopped celery
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
• 6 tablespoons bleached all-purpose flour
• 2 cups Chicken Stock or canned chicken broth
• 1/2 cup heavy cream (a little fat makes it yummy)
• 2 cups peeled and diced Idaho potatoes, cooked in boiling salted water until tender, 6 to 8 minutes
• 2 -3 cloves garlic with a large chop.
• 1 cup diced carrots, cooked in boiling salted water until tender, 4 to 5 minutes
• 1 cup sweet young peas, fresh or frozen (defrost if frozen)
• 2 cups shredded cooked chicken, white meat (we used a rotisserie chicken)(We left out the finely chopped fresh parley leaves only because we forgot that ingredient at the store ??‍♀️)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Grease a 13 x 9 x 2-inch baking pan.

Step 1: Heat the butter in a large saute pan over medium-high heat. (Don’t walk away from this pot during this step or you could burn the butter)

Step 2: Add the onions and saute while moving around the pot for 2-3 minutes. Add a little broth (1/4 cup) and saute for another 2-3 minutes moving around the pot. You want the onions to be translucent and NOT browned. This is a non-traditional way to cook a yellow onion that allows the “sweetness” to come out. This will help enrich the flavor of the entire dish in a unique way.

Step 3: Add the celery, season with salt and pepper, and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes.

Step 4: (you may want to add a helper / 2nd pair of hands) Stir in the flour and cook, stirring, for 3 to 4 minutes to make a blond roux. Flour can burn. So, use a wooden stick and move the pot contents around so you don’t burn the flour as you fold it into your mixture.

Step 5: Stir in the chicken stock and bring the liquid to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer until the sauce begins to thicken, 4 to 6 minutes.

Step 6: Stir in the cream and continue to cook for another 4 minutes.

Step 7: Season with salt and pepper. BEWARE: many people like hot sauce with this entree. In addition, cream can mask saltiness. So use salt carefully here. You can ruin the flavor with over-salting this dish.

Step 8: Stir in the potatoes, carrots, peas, garlic, chicken, and season with salt and pepper, and mix well.

Step 9: Line a baking pan with one of the rolled-out piecrusts. (This should have been baked earlier- follow instructions on frozen rolled pie crust.) Pour the filling into the prepared pan. Place the second crust on top of the filling. Carefully tuck the overlapping crusts into the pan, forming a thick edge. Crimp the edges, cut vents in the top crust, and place on a baking sheet. Add an egg wash on top for color and some flavor.

Step 10: Bake until the crust is golden brown and crusty, 20 to 25 minutes. Let cool for 5 minutes before slicing to serve.

Enjoy with white wine.

Add hot sauce as desired

A special thank you, again, to Gill’s Onions. The dish turned out great thanks to the wonderful local grown onions right here in Oxnard!

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