Recipe: Evan Kleiman's Chicken Pot Pie With Duck-Butter Dough

Remember when I took that pie making class with Evan Kleiman and Sherry Yard as a fundraiser for KCRW? Well, here's Evan's amazing chicken pot pie recipe. I get hungry thinking about this pie!

The first part is, of course, the pie dough. Evan uses part butter and part duck fat for her chicken pot pie dough. Love ...

Evan Kleiman's Duck-Butter Dough
Ingredients:
12 oz flour
pinch of salt
5 oz high fat butter (Plugra, Kerrygold) cut into 5 pieces, chilled
3 oz rendered duck fat, pulled into 3 pieces, chilled
4 to 5 oz ice cold water

Directions:
Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Toss the butter and duck fat lumps around until they are coated with flour. Use a pastry cutter or your fingers to mix the fats and flour together until you have a mixture with uneven crumbles, some as big as almonds and some as small as peas.

Add the water a tablespoon at a time, fluffing up the mixture after each addition with a fork. Once you can create a clump by squeezing the dough in your fist it has enough water. Don't worry if it's a little shaggy, as long as it sticks together.

Divide the dough in half and form into flat discs.
Dump the crumbly mixture onto your work surface and bring the mass together by first pushing it away from you with the heel of your hand then gathering it up with a bench scraper. Repeat if necessary. Here's a video of Evan's instructions on rolling the dough:


Give the dough a couple of quick kneads then cut dough in half, form each half into flat discs. Wrap each in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes and as long as two days. You may also freeze the dough after it rests.

OK, now that you've rested the dough, let's move on to the rest of the pot pie recipe!

Evan Kleiman's Chicken Pot Pie
makes 10" deep dish pie or 6 8oz individual pies

Ingredients:
Pie dough of your choice
1lb cooked chicken off the bone (from a rotisserie chicken, boiled chicken, or poached thighs/breasts)
4 cups chicken broth
2 whole carrots, peeled and diced small
2 celery stalks, diced small
1 small yellow onion, peeled and diced small
10-12 sugar snap peas, stringed and cut diagonally into slices so peas spill out
1 cob corn, shucked and niblets cut off (about 1/2 -1 cup niblets)
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup olive oil
6 tbsp butter
5 tbsp flour
2 tbsp minced Italian parsley

Directions:
Sautee carrots, celery, onion in olive oil until softened. Set aisde.

To make chicken veloute, first heat the chicken broth and keep the warmed broth on the side. Melt the butter in a small saucepan. Whisk in the flour and let cook over very low heat until the flour turns blond. Pour the warm chicken broth into the roux and cook, whisking occasionally until the sauce thickens. Add salt and pepper to taste. Turn off the heat.

Add the prepared chicken and vegetable saute to the sauce along with the parsley. Mix well and let the ingredients sit together to marry the flavors. It's best if you make the filling in advance so it has a chance to cool down before you put it in a pie pan and cover it with dough.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Put chicken mixture in buttered pie pan or divide mixture amongst individual pans. Roll out dough and top the fillings making a nice big crimped edge. Be sure to cut a vent or vents in the top pastry. Place pies on baking sheet. Bake at 400' for 20 minutes. Turn heat down to 375 and continue baking until crust is beautifully golden and filling is piping hot.