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| Try this easy recipe to make your own delicious pot pies. |
This recipe makes approx. 12 individual pot pies (4 3/8” diameter x 1 3/16” or 11.1 cm diameter x 3 cm). All of the veggies (except mushroom and garlic) were grown in my garden! Easy to make and very delicious.
Ingredients
2 cups cooked and chopped meat (optional)
1 egg white lightly beaten (to seal the crust edges)
1 cup frozen or fresh peas (canned peas sometimes become mushy)
1 cup frozen or fresh chopped carrots
1 cup frozen or fresh corn kernels
1 cup frozen or fresh zucchini chopped or shredded
1 cup finely chopped white or yellow onion
1 cup chopped celery
1 cup fresh mushrooms finely chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 cup cooked potato cut into small cubes
6 cups of stock (chicken, beef or vegetable) store bought or homemade
1 Tbsp olive or canola oil
½ tsp salt
½ tsp dried thyme
¼ tsp pepper
¼ tsp dried savory
2 crushed cloves of garlic
The roux (to thicken the sauce):
½ cup butter melted
½ cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup finely chopped shallots (optional)
Make the filling
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| In a large pot, bring vegetables, meat, spices and stock to a simmer. |
In a very large pot (or Dutch oven) on medium heat, sauté, carrots, onions and celery in 1 Tbsp oil until the veggies are soft. Add the stock to the pot and then add the remaining veggies and spices, except for potatoes so they don’t break up and turn to mush, and the cooked, cubed meat (optional).
Stir often and simmer on medium heat for 20 minutes or until the mixture comes to a gentle boil.
Make the roux and thicken the sauce
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| Melt butter and add shallots. |
In a small saucepan on medium heat, make a roux by combining the melted butter with flour and finely chopped shallots, and gradually whisk ingredients together quickly until the roux is thick. Make sure it doesn’t burn.
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| Gradually add flour and whisk briskly to avoid large clumps. |
Remove roux from heat and set aside.
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| Roux should be thick and shallots translucent. |
Thicken the mixture
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| Gradually add roux to filling and whisk briskly. |
Ensure that the ingredients in the large pot are at a gentle boil (increase heat, if necessary), then gradually add the roux, stirring constantly with a large spoon to avoid clumps and prevent the mixture from burning on the inside of the pot.
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| Add meat and cooked cubed potatoes. |
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| Filling will be creamy and thick. |
Once the filling is thick so that it sticks to a spoon, remove from heat and allow it to cool thoroughly; this might take a couple of hours. You could immerse the pot in a very large bowl with ice and water to help speed up the cooling process, but ensure that no water gets into the pot; we want the filling to be thick. The filling must be completely cool before pouring into pie shells. Warm or hot mixture will melt the dough.
While it’s cooling, make the pie shells.
Never fail pie crust (makes four 9 inch pie shells)
Ingredients
3 cups all-purpose flour (sometimes I use 1.5 cups all-purpose and 1.5 cups wheat flour)
½ tsp salt
1 ¼ cups vegetable shortening
1 egg lightly beaten
1/3 cup very cold water (add ice, if necessary)
1 Tbsp white vinegar
Mix together flour and salt in a large bowl.
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| Ingredients to make simple pie dough. |
Cut in shortening with two knives using a criss-crossing motion or with a pastry blender until shortening is well-incorporated into the flour-salt mixture and the mixture resembles coarse oatmeal.
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| Flour cut in with lard. |
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| Close up of the flour-lard cut in together. There should be some small chunks of lard. |
In a small bowl, combine beaten egg, cold water (I use ice to ensure it’s very cold) and vinegar.
Pour the wet ingredients into the bowl containing the dry ingredients. Mix well with a large wooden spoon until the dry and wet ingredients are well incorporated and the mixture sticks together so that you can make dough balls.
With your clean hands, quickly make four equal sized balls and wrap individually in plastic food wrap and place in refrigerator; we don’t want the dough to dry out.
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| Make four dough balls, wrap with plastic food wrap and refrigerate. |
It’s important to keep the dough chilled to achieve a light and flaky crust. If your kitchen is warm, the lard may melt, so work quickly, form the balls and get the dough into the refrigerator.
Refrigerate for at least one hour. Remove from fridge and let stand for 15 minutes. You want to be able to roll the dough easily, but you don’t want the lard chunks to melt, either.
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| Dough ball chilled after an hour in fridge, then 15 mins. resting on floured surface. |
Roll dough on a lightly floured board with a lightly floured rolling pin to desired thickness (mine is normally 1/8” thick).
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| Making circles for pie tops and bottoms. |
Using a bowl that has a larger diameter than the pie plate you plan to use, invert the bowl onto the rolled dough and press firmly to make at least two circles – one for the pie bottom and one for the top.
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| Gently lift dough circles and form into pie plates. |
Using a spatula, gently lift one circle and work it into the bottom of the pie plate, ensuring that some of the dough hangs over the edge of the plate so you will be able to pinch the top and bottom crusts together to seal in the filling.
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| Scoop one heaping cup of filling into dough base. |
Pour 1 heaping cup of filling into the bottom doughed pie plate.
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| Lightly brush beaten egg white along top of edges. |
In a small bowl, beat the egg white gently and lightly brush the edges of the dough crust all the way around. This will help the bottom and top crusts bind together, forming a good seal.
Place the second dough circle on top and pinch the sides together all the way around.
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| Place top on pie and pinch edges with your fingers. |
Cut away excess dough along the edges and wrap excess dough in plastic food wrap to keep moist.
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| Cut off excess dough along edges with sharp knife. |
Use a fork to seal the edges all the way around and cut a few small slits on the top of the crust to vent steam while baking, otherwise the seal may break and you’ll have a mess to clean up in the oven.
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| Press down on edges with a fork to seal the pie. |
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| Cut a few slits on top to vent steam while cooking. |
Form more dough balls from the excess dough until you don’t have enough to make a pair of pie circles.
Repeat the dough-mixture-seal-vent process until you run out of filling. You can refrigerate leftover dough for up to a week in tightly sealed plastic food wrap. You can also freeze leftover dough for up to a month, but I wrap mine in tightly sealed plastic food wrap and a layer of aluminum foil, too.
Mark the outside of the wrapping with the date and contents description. In the past, I’ve found balls of dough hidden in my freezer and couldn’t remember if I made them two weeks or two months ago, so they usually ended up in the garbage.
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| Toilet paper rolls on baking trays form tiers to freeze at least a dozen pies at a time. |
Put the pies in the freezer for 24 hours or until completely frozen solid, then put into freezer bags or containers, label and return to freezer to enjoy later.
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| Pot pies in freezer for at least 24 hours or until completely solid. |
As long as they’re in sealed packaging or containers, they keep very well for up to six months, but they’re so delicious that they never last that long around here! Don’t thaw the pies before cooking them.
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| Label the freezer bag/container. |
Cooking instructions for pot pies - frozen:
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| Lightly brush beaten egg on top to aid in browning. |
Brush tops of frozen pot pies with a lightly beaten egg (optional).
Place pies on baking sheet and bake at 375F for 40-45 minutes until bubbling and golden brown.
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| Remove from oven and let the pie sit for about 10 minutes. Filling will be very hot. |
Fresh pot pies don’t need to cook as long as frozen once so, cook for about 25-30 @ 375F minutes until bubbling and golden brown.
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| Steaming hot with a mouth-watering aroma. |
Bon appétit!
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