Chicken Pot Pie

I love chicken pot pie, chicken soup and all the leftover turkey recipes after Thanksgiving and moving into Christmas. They all feel like warm, cozy, comfort food. In search of a yummy replacement for a pot pie pie crust that is gluten free and crisp I came across the below recipe. The crust is crisp and wonderful, but I will warn you it is a challenge to roll. I didn't mind because pretty wasn't my goal as you can see by my picture. For the gluten free flour I used Bobs Red Mill 1:1 Baking Flour. It has a bit of sweetness to it, so I might try another mix in the future, but this one still worked wonderfully. I also used butter instead of coconut oil to make sure the pie crust was crisper.


Ingredients
Pie Crust
1 cup almond flour
1 cup gluten-free flour blend plus additional for dusting cutting board
½ tsp Celtic sea salt
¼ tsp xanthan gum omit if your flour blend already has this (The 1:1 Baking flour contains xanthum)
½ cup Kerry Gold butter, Ghee, or coconut oil
1 tsp rice of white vinegar
2-4 tbsp ice water
1 egg, for egg wash (optional)

Chicken Pot Pie Filling
2 tbsp Kerry Gold butter or ghee
2 tbsp tapioca starch or arrowroot powder
2 cups chicken stock or bone broth
2 cups shredded chicken
1 ½ cups carrots, chopped
1 cups peas
¾ cup pearl onions or white onions
½ tsp garlic powder
½ tsp thyme, dried
¼ tsp turmeric
¼ tsp sage, dried
¼ tsp ground black pepper

Instructions
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Combine flours, xantham gum (unless your flour already contains it), and celtic salt in a large bowl. Mix well.

Quickly work in the butter or coconut oil with your hands or pastry cutter.

Mix vinegar and cold water. Work into to crust mixture one tablespoon at a time. Work until crust just comes together. Add additional ice water if needed.

Wrap crust in plastic wrap. Chill crust 30 to 60 minutes while you work on the filling.

For the filling, heat butter or ghee in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add in the tapioca or arrowroot flour and whisk vigorously until combined so there are no lumps. Cook for 30 seconds.

Slowly pour in the stock, whisking constantly. If you pour in too quickly you will have lumps. Cook for 1-2 minutes until thickened, whisking every few seconds.

Stir in the vegetables and chicken, cook for 3-5 minutes until heated through. Add in the remaining spices for the filling and bring to a simmer. Season the filling to taste with additional salt and pepper, if needed.

Put your pie plate well. Remove dough from the plastic wrap. On a floured surface remove 1/3 of the dough and reverse it for the top of the pie. I didn't find rolling this dough to work very well so I put the 2/3 in the bottom of the pie plate and pressed it until it filled the bottom and the sides of the pie plate. Place the crust in the oven for 5-7 minutes checking often. You want it to feel just undercooked or barely cooked. Take out of the oven and fill with the chicken filling. Since I wasn't able to roll out the pie crust very well I rolled it as thin as I could on a piece of parchment paper, then laid the parchment over the pie to slowly remove the crust from the parchment laying it on the pie surface. I took the rest of the dough and rolled it making a patchwork pie crust top. I know, not pretty, but it was absolutely yummy.

Whisk the egg with 1 tablespoon cold water. Using a pastry brush, lightly brush the egg wash onto the tops of the crusts (I forgot this step, again it adds pretty to your pie). If you manage to cover your pie in one piece then cut 2 one inch vents in the top of the crust.
Bake pot pie until golden and crispy brown. Approximately 20 minutes. Watch closely, mine cooked faster than anticipated.