My husband has often requested I make pot pies, but it’s not something I had any experience with (other than those horrible salty frozen things in little aluminum pans) so I’ve sort of put him off.
But now I have about four cups of turkey leftovers, about equal light and dark meat, plus a couple cups of left over gravy. (Yes, this stuff was frozen since the day after Thanksgiving.)
So, I’m guessing: peel potatoes, cut into cubes, simmer til soft? Similar with carots?
Then saute some onions, celery, and garlic, add to the gravy and heat through? Then add the veggies and cut up turkey? I think the gravy will need more salt and pepper to offset all the additions.
What else should I add? some peas? And/or corn?
Then dump it all into a casserole dish? (Greased?)
The big question has to do with the crust – just the same as a pie crust? Or should I add some sort of savoury herbs to it? (I only plan to do a top crust, unless that is scandalous.)
Once the crust is on, I’m thinking you just bake it until everything is hot and the crust looks nicely browned. 350f for maybe a half hour?
Jamie Oliver made chicken pie not long ago. He put in leeks and mushrooms, then stirred in some creme fraische (I suppose sour cream would work as well). He covered it with puff pastry rolled thin and gave it an egg wash, IIRC. It looked yummy!
An easier way to make the crust would just be to cover the top of the casserole with Pillsbury flaky biscuits before you put it in the oven.
If you have any dressing left over, I’d incorporate that as well. For seasoning, I like Bell’s, garlic, and a little hot Hungarian paprika.
Basically, you can stir in anything you want—cranberries, chunks of cornbread, frozen carrots and peas, whatever. I made wild rice dressing for Thanksgiving, and used it afterwards to make a lovely pot of thick soup.
The congealed turkey gel and fat will provide plenty of liquid when you heat it up, so I wouldn’t even worry about adding water, unless the meat is a bit dry.
Turkey stew with Bisquick dumplings would be good too. The dumplings would help thicken the gravy.
saute up some mirepoix (2 parts onion, 1 part carrot, 1 part celery) with some garlic.
either prepare a roux separately or if you measure your fat before you saute the mirepoix add in your flour and cook until you have the raw flour smell cooked out of the flour (a blonde roux).
add chicken broth and thyme or whatever herbs you want to throw in there until you get it to the consistency you want and the turkey. adjust to taste with salt and pepper.
for the crust you can just buy the pillsbury pie dough sheets and line a dutch oven with one and par bake it in your oven for about ten minutes. let it cool and then add your filling, and another dough sheet over the top, and make some slits or design or whatever if you’re feeling fancy on the top.
eggwash the top crust and bake until lightly browned.
and you end up with pot pie.
if you want to add potatoes, cook them seperately and then add them to the filling.
use google for ratios of roux to liquid (chicken broth in your case) to determine how much filling you want to make.
Your ideas in the OP sound fine. At work, on Monday, I made pot pies like that for our lunch special in the cafe. Top crust only, just regular pie crust. I roll it out slightly larger than the dish, to double the edge back under and press onto edge of dish. Brush lightly with beaten egg.
Sounds good. I know Cooks Illustrated believes in heating the filling before putting it in the pan and crusting it, so that the crust cooks more evenly.
Only issue is whether the gravy by itself will be thick enough for you; that depends on how thick you want your pie filling and how thick the gravy is to begin with of course.
Milk or cream is often added to pot pies as well. If you do add milk, you’ll probably want to make a roux to thicken it.
Greasing the pan won’t do anything with a wet filling; I suppose if you use a biscuit crust without too much butter you could grease the edge where the crust hits the pan. With a pie crust there’s probably enough fat it doesn’t matter anyway.
I like peas in pot pie (unlike some people in this house. Sigh)
I think I’m going to grab bits from all of you. As in:
I’ve got a bit of sour cream on hand. Sour cream makes almost everything better.
Hadn’t thought of sauteing the carrots, too, good idea. And thyme! And maybe a bit of sage. Don’t have any left over stuffing, but a hint of sage would enforce the Thanksgiving theme.
Reassuring to know plain pie crust is fine, and I was spacing on the idea of egg wash. (I use milk and sugar on fruit pies, but that would be so wrong for this.)
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Given the OP name, is this another “Need answer fast!” thread?
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Hah! Well, it is going to be tonight’s supper…
And, yes, the guts of the pie will be hot before I put the crust on. Not out of planning or intention, just that I’ll be throwing this together after work and there won’t be time to let the filling cool off before getting it into the oven.
So… sounds like I have a plan! Will report back on success/failure.
