I never like to argue with the bible of American cookery, “Joy of Cooking.” Much of its advice is timeless, like the best way to skin an eel and how to make fritters from day lilies.
But in search of advice on chicken potpie, this confident statement made me pause: “None of us has lost the taste for creamed foods served on toast or in bread or pastry containers.”
“Joy of Cooking” was published in 1931 and now, 85 years later, I must admit that I have mostly lost the taste for creamed foods, contained or not. Apparently others have as well.
Apart from a few holdouts who insist on creamed onions at Thanksgiving, I don’t know a modern home cook who regularly turns out creamed mushrooms, chicken à la king or the dreaded creamed chipped beef on toast.
A skillet with bacon, mushrooms and chicken. CreditJessica Emily Marx for The New York Times
But still lingering on American menus is chicken potpie, a dish based on creamed chicken that is so beloved that the taste of it doesn’t seem to matter.
If it did, would we ignore that most versions have very little flavor? Without the crust and the mini pie dish, would we be made happy by a bowl of chicken in gummy sauce stirred with frozen peas and carrots?
Probably not.
What our “creamed” dishes have in common is not cream, but white sauce, a thrifty substitute with many uses in the kitchen. (It is called béchamel in French and besciamella in Italian.) It is made by lightly cooking flour in fat (this is also known as a roux), and then thinning it with milk.
In early American kitchens, white sauce stood in for cream, which was reserved for making butter. Later on, canned “cream of” soups supplanted white sauce in many creamed dishes, like the filling for a “Joy of Cooking” quick chicken potpie: a poached chicken, canned cream of chicken soup and milk. (No, thanks.)
I grew up believing that a frozen potpie was one of life’s great rewards, signaled by the arrival of a babysitter. This meant relief from my usual monotonous diet: home-cooked dinners made from fresh ingredients by my parents, both excellent cooks. (This is the food version of unconscious privilege.)
At that age, I loved the frozen version’s salty crust, the Day-Glo peas and carrots, and the soft bits of chicken. As an adult cook, I labored to reproduce it by makinghomemade chicken potpies: blanching tiny cubes of fresh peas and carrots, poaching organic chicken breasts and stirring all manner of herbs and spices into my white sauce in an attempt to wake up the taste.
They were O.K., but all of them had the telltale blandness of milk, which tends to muffle flavors instead of brightening them. Chicken breast generally has no taste to start with, and when bound in that sauce, even sweet, fresh carrots and peas give up.
Finally I realized the underlying problem. As an emulsion of flour and fat, white sauce itself is a kind of liquid pie crust.
White sauce has its place, on biscuits, heavily peppered and cooked with sausage meat or between the layers of a lasagna. But in a pie, it doubles the starch and blandness.
I first received inklings of an alternate potpie universe at the sleek and modern NoMad Bar in New York. It is not the kind of place associated with American comfort food: The room (and everyone in it) is chic and expensively accessorized. Similarly, the NoMad Bar’s chicken potpie, introduced in 2014, is decorated with a skewer of foie gras and spiked with truffles.
But the big-ticket ingredients are not the real draw. Nor is it the pie’s burnished brown crust, lofty as a hot-air balloon. It’s what lies underneath. When I cracked through that crust for the first time, I discovered brown gravy instead of viscous white fluid, and it was scented with chicken juices and wine, like the best kind of stew. This has possibilities, I thought.
I tried making a pie filling with stock instead of milk: an instant improvement. And then I began to question all the rules for the traditional recipe. What purpose is served by the carrots and peas? Why cook the ingredients separately if you’re going to combine them anyway? Is a bottom crust really necessary?
Here are the updated rules for a modern potpie:
• There is no need for a double crust. A single crust is enough, and pie crust, biscuit dough or puff pastry can all do an excellent job. But the flakiness of pie crust makes the ideal topping.
• Instead of milk, use stock, wine, vinegar or a tasty combination as the liquid in your binding sauce. Season the sauce aggressively.
• Boneless thigh meat has more taste and better texture than boneless breast.
• Vegetables should be served separately, not force-marched into the filling. (Roasted carrots, peas with mint and buttered steamed asparagus are all nice to serve with chicken potpie.)
After some messy experiments, I realized that the right filling for my modern pie was at hand: a basic chicken sauté. Brown the chicken, deglaze the pan and there it is: meat and sauce, fully cooked, in one pan. Flouring the chicken parts before sautéing not only thickened the sauce, but produced more of the stuck-on brown bits at the bottom of the pan that make the best pan gravy.
On a mission to make a lively filling, I found that the components of a French poulet au vinaigre — sherry vinegar, parsley and mushrooms — called to me. But it would be just as effective to swap in white wine, tarragon and shallots or another combination of aromatics and liquids. (If you miss the creaminess of the old-school filling, stir a little crème fraîche into it at the end.) Whether made in one large pie pan or several small ones, it makes an easy, impressive and reasonably quick main dish.
Most satisfyingly, it has the reassuring textures of the old-school recipes, with deep flavor of chicken. There is nothing wrong with the traditional white sauce version, but it’s not all that chicken potpie can be.
Recipe: Modern Chicken Potpie
And to Drink …
Most chicken potpie recipes go equally well with whites and reds. But with the addition of bacon or pancetta to the chicken thighs and mushrooms, I would opt for a red. Pinot noir would be delicious — not one of the more subtle options, but a village Burgundy, a Côte Chalonnaise or a good bottle from Oregon or the Sonoma Coast. A cru Beaujolais would also go well, as would a Langhe nebbiolo, an Etna rosso or a Chianti Classico. How about a Montsant from Catalonia, or a mencía from Ribeira Sacra? If you prefer a white, I would not turn down a white Burgundy like a St.-Aubin or a St.-Romain, or a Savennières from the Loire, made with chenin blanc. Sherry lovers know that an amontillado would be superb. ERIC ASIMOV
