Curry Chicken Pot Pie

I had some leftover chicken breasts and while delicious, I was getting tired of chicken and rice (not to mention I polished off the rice before the chicken). In an attempt to jazz that chicken up, I looked up some recipes from Alton Brown (easily my favorite person on the Food Network). I found this one for Curry Chicken Pot Pie that looked promising and I documented my attempt for your reading and viewing pleasure.

The ingredients for said pot pie, nothing too crazy:

I did make some changes to the original recipe (which is posted at the end). Instead of the frozen vegetable mix, I used a can of corn, some frozen peas, some leftover carrots (I think I used three) and a few potatoes that I picked up at the Farmer's Market. I also forgot to buy celery when grocery shopping so I used slightly more onion instead and added some garlic. And instead of puff pastry (which is a bit pricey) I used Pillsbury crescent rolls...flaky, puffy, perfect.

Handy tip regarding onion chopping: I used to be horrible at chopping onions as all those layers would start moving about and I could never neatly chop them. Then I learned this trick (not sure if it's standard onion cutting procedure and I'm just slow), cut the onion in half, splitting the root end in two. Then cut slivers of onion up to the root but being careful not to cut completely through (think of it as almost fanning the onion out). The root end keeps everything together and you can get a nice, neat chop, shown here:
I sweated the onions in some butter while I heated up the chicken stock and milk,

And in the meantime, I assembled my vegetable medley, with the vegetables uncooked, peas still frozen and the potatoes cubed and boiled, all in all, it totaled about four cups:

After the onions cooked for a bit, I added two cloves of garlic and a bit more butter. As they say, butter, butter, butter makes everything better, better, better.

After those cooked for a bit and smelled delish, I added the flour and curry powder and things got thicker and smelled super.

The hot milk and chicken stock were added next and I let that cook for a few minutes until it seemed like a thick soup.

My vegetable medley and leftover cubed chicken (a cut up rotisserie chicken would be good here) were added to the mix and things looked good. I intended to cook this in one pot but it was a little full.

I spread everything out into a foiled lined pan (easy clean up, my friends) and packed it down to get rid of any trapped air (a tip from good ol' Uncle Alton). For the top, I just unrolled the crescent dough and poked some holes with a fork to let the steam escape and then just plopped it on there.
After being in a 400 degree oven for 25 minutes, things were looking golden brown and delicious.

Finished product and a tasty looking dinner:

Overall, I enjoyed this recipe, the curry was nice and not too overpowering. However there are a few things I would do differently. First, I probably should have cooked my vegetable medley (as the original recipe does). The corn and carrots were a bit too crunchy and probably would have benefited from a little cooking. Second, it was a little soupy. This may have just been because I was impatient and dug into it as soon as it came out of the oven. Next time I'll cook the pre-vegetable and chicken stage a bit more to get things nice and thick. But don't get me wrong, this stuff is good, like crunchy, flaky crescent rolls with a curry sauce soaked underbelly good.


Curry Chicken Pot Pie

4 cups frozen vegetable mix, peas, carrots
1-2 tablespoons canola oil
3 tablespoons butter
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup chopped celery
1 1/2 cups low sodium chicken broth
1/2 cup milk
3 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon curry powder
2 tablespoons dried parsley
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground pepper
2 cups cubed cooked chicken
1 package puff pastry

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Toss frozen vegetables with canola oil and spread evenly onto a sheet pan. Place into oven and cook until golden brown.

In a saute pan heat 1 tablespoon of butter and sweat the onion and celery. In another saucepan, heat the broth and milk. Add 2 more tablespoons of butter to the celery mix and cook out the water. Add the flour and curry and cook for 1 to 2 minutes. Whisk in the hot milk mixture and cook until thickened. Add the parsley, salt and pepper. Toss the browned vegetables and the chicken. Pour into a shallow baking pan, or a large terra cotta pot base, lined with foil, and top with 6 to 8 circles of puff pastry. Place into the oven and cook until puff pastry has browned and the mixture is hot and bubbly, about 25 minutes.