Every once in a while, it’s nice to be able to sit down to something that’s less science experiment and more… well, comfort food.  Alton Brown’s curry chicken pot pie is one such dish.  Back in the States, G and I would buy a Costco roast chicken just so that we could have breast meat to use for this recipe.  Since there isn’t exactly a plethora of Costco’s or cheap (western) roast chicken, I haven’t had a chance to make pot pie until recently when I was “gifted” 4 kg of turkey breast.  But that’s a story for another day.

For the foodies out there, if you aren’t familiar with Good Eats, do yourself a huge favor and rent it/buy it/download it.  Alton Brown does an amazingly entertaining job of explaining the science behind food and cooking.  One episode is devoted to the humble pot pie, and the original recipe for curry chicken version is available here.  I made two changes – substituted turkey for chicken (ok, so a bit of overkill here: I sous vide the turkey breast, 4 hours at 61° C), and added mushrooms.

For the lazy here are the ingredients and instructions:

Ingredients

• 4 cups of frozen mixed vegetables
• 2 cups of cubed chicken (or turkey) breast
• 1 cup chopped onions
• 1 cup diced celery
• 2 cups mushrooms (quartered)
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 3 tablespoons flour
• 1 1/2 cup chicken broth (low sodium)
• 1-2 teaspoons curry powder
• 1-2 sprigs of fresh parsley
• puff pastry
• salt and pepper to taste

• Roast the frozen vegetables on a baking pan until slightly golden brown.
• Sweat the onions and celery until the onions are slightly translucent.  Mix in the butter and flour (aka a roux) and cook for a few minutes
• Mix in milk, chicken broth, curry, and parsley.  Bring to a simmer.  Sauce should thicken.
• Add the roasted frozen vegetables and chicken (or turkey in our case).  Remove parsley.

• Spoon the mix into an oven-safe pan.  For individual servings, you can use ramekins…
• Poke holes in the puff pastry and cover
• Bake at 190° C until puff pastry is browned (20-25 min)