- [Announcer 1] This is a production of PBS Charlotte.

- [Announcer 2] The following episode of Charlotte Cooks is brought to you by Central Piedmont Community College and viewers like you.

Thank you.

- Coming up, we're making a classic chicken pot pie using local ingredients.

(upbeat music) Welcome to this edition of Charlotte Cooks.

I'm really glad that you're here with me today, and joining me in the kitchen is Mary Jayne Wilson from the Thoughtful Baking Company.

Hi, Mary Jane, how are you?

- Hi, I'm doin' great, thank you for havin' me.

- I'm glad you're here.

So, you used to be the chef at Amelie's?

- Yes, I was the executive chef and the director of operations at Amelie's for nine years.

- [Pamela] Wow.

- And just recently, in the early 2021, started Thoughtful Baking Company.

- Well, what a time to start a business.

- Yes, yeah, it was kind of out of necessity.

You know, COVID, I was actually laid off from my job and I had a dream of starting my own business and it, it was the perfect time.

And I started with chicken pot pie, you know, with the moment we were all in, it seemed like the right first step.

Everyone needed some comfort, I think.

- You make it completely from scratch.

- Everything from scratch, and I also focus on as many local ingredients as possible.

- What do we start with?

- We're gonna start making chicken stock.

- Okay.

- So, I think a lot of people are intimidated with making chicken stock.

It's actually super simple and easy.

It does take time.

- [Pamela] Yes.

- But it's not complicated.

We're gonna make enough stock that you'll have a little extra.

So, there's lots of things you can do with the extra stock.

You can make a big batch of this, freeze it, it's great for soups, homemade soups.

There is a little cheat, if you wanted to skip this process, you could buy a chicken stock and you could also buy like a roasted chicken from the grocery store and do it that way.

- [Pamela] I was gonna ask you about that.

- Yes, yes, it is intimidating to a lot of people and everybody may not have the time to do this.

I think it's a great, great way to, you know, get everything out of it and do it in a sustainable way.

I started some earlier, so this has all our vegetables, our water.

I like to cook it all the way to the point.

My big tester, and it's an easy test, is you pull on one of the legs on one of the bones, and if that bone slides right out, like you can see it came out over here on this leg, you know that your chicken is fully cooked and that the meat's gonna be tender enough to pull off the bone.

- [Pamela] So I'm gonna get this out of our way.

- [Mary Jayne] Alright.

- [Pamela] 'Cause this is what we're gonna use to make our chicken pot pie with.

- We're gonna get our carrots, onion, celery.

So, mirepoix is kind of the base of a lot of things.

You can do a really rough chop, they do not have to be pretty for this part.

The carrots, I do wash them, but I do not peel them.

Another thing you can do is, you know, if you are a home cook, save your scraps.

So when you're peeling carrots, cutting up celery, save all your scraps.

You can even put 'em in the freezer.

And this is a really good way to use your scraps if you didn't want to cut up the whole vegetables.

- So you put these in first?

- Yep, you can go ahead and dump all the veggies in.

So everything's gonna start from cold.

Our chicken is refrigerated, washed, dried.

- And no guts inside.

- No guts inside, you want to make sure- - We've taken those all out.

- Yes, we want all of that out of there.

But other than that, it is ready to go right in the pot.

So we're gonna just slide her right in there.

- [Pamela] Get rid of these dishes for you.

- Kinda nestle it in a little bit, and then we're gonna fully cover it with water, cold water, or room temp water is great.

We want to completely cover the bird.

As it starts to cook, the vegetables are gonna soften and drop down a little bit, so it's gonna be pretty full to start, which is another reason you don't wanna boil it 'cause it will boil over.

And as it starts goin', as the vegetables cook, it will sink back down to being completely covered.

So we're gonna keep it at medium to start, and once we start to see some boil and some activity in the water.

- Turn it down.

- Turn it down, and we want to do just nice and slow.

So you should just see some low, low bubbles, and then that's kind of where you want to keep it.

- Okay.

And, like, two hours is great, it could go a little longer.

Not gonna hurt anything to go a little longer.

- And you know what's really nice when you do this, is it makes your house smell so good.

- Absolutely.

- Chicken stock smells amazing while it's cooking.

- Yes.

- As long as you don't let the pot boil dry.

I'm gonna move this out of our way, and we're gonna take our stockpot that is done and we're gonna strain that chicken for our actual chicken pot pie.

- After you cook your stock, you do want to give it enough time to cool off, to be able to handle the chicken.

You don't wanna burn yourself.

- [Pamela] Right.

- And you can see it's just fallin' apart, which is exactly what you want.

So, if you wanna come over.

So we wanna make sure we get all the skin off, and as we break this chicken down, we also want to make sure there's no tendons or anything that's not gonna be texturally good while we're eating.

- [Pamela] Right, we just want nice, tender meat.

- [Mary Jayne] Exactly.

- Both light and dark meat, right?

And if you didn't want to do this, all the way from scratch like this at home, like we mentioned before, go get one of those rotisserie chickens.

Or if you have any leftover chicken that you made at home, it can be done with all white meat, it could be done with all dark meat, whatever you have, whatever you prefer, or you can just use the whole chicken.

Whole chickens are really inexpensive to buy.

- Yep.

- And that's why I prefer using the whole chicken.

- Yeah, yeah.

- 'Cause you get that wonderful flavor of both the light meat and the dark meat.

- So we're gonna get all this up and then we're gonna chop that, and we can set that aside for when we make our filling.

So we've got our chicken off the bone.

- I like the knife.

- Thank you.

It was actually a Christmas present from my husband.

- [Pamela] Oh, nice.

- [Mary Jayne] Yeah.

- [Pamela] Thanks, hubby.

- [Mary Jayne] Yeah, it's the best, it's a Japanese vegetable cleaver.

- [Pamela] Okay.

- And it's, it's great, I love it, it's a great knife.

I like it 'cause it's very wide and you can scoop up things after you chop it and move it to your bowl.

So we wanna have some nice chunks in there.

You could also just shred it, you know, with your hands or a fork if you didn't wanna chop it up.

- [Pamela] The thing I love about chicken pot pie is all the wonderful vegetables that go into it.

- [Mary Jayne] Yes.

- So you add carrots, onions, and celery.

- And peas.

- What else?

- Little bit more too about these chickens, I use chickens from Two Pigs Farm in Cleveland, North Carolina.

- [Pamela] Nice.

- They're all pasture-raised chickens, which is important.

- Again, I try to focus a lot on sustainability and makin' sure that, you know, I know where the ingredients are coming from.

- [Pamela] It's important these days.

- And that they're raised as well.

It really is, it really matters.

It's also, you know, it's important to be a positive part of the local food system.

- [Pamela] Absolutely.

- So, by using all local ingredients and supporting local farms, that's kind of how I like to be inspired by what I even make.

So, seasonally what you can get, and locally.

- I think it's really important to really know where your food comes from, instead of buying food that has been commercially produced.

There's more flavor in this when it's locally produced, it doesn't have to go as far, you have less of a carbon footprint.

- Yep.

It just better for the environment, better for everything all the way around.

- It really is, and it tastes better.

- It tastes better, absolutely, you're gonna end up with a better product.

- Yes.

So we can keep workin' on this chicken, we do have enough for the one pie that we're gonna make today.

So, we can stop with the chicken right there.

- So if you did a whole chicken, you can actually get a couple of nice sized pies out of it.

- You can, yes, and so, I made the pies and I actually sell them frozen.

So I make the pot pies and people bake them at home.

So, one kind of trick I like to do, since you're doin' all this work already, go ahead and make a couple pies, make two or three.

And they freeze really well, and it's a great, easy dinner, you know, any night that you don't want to cook, your house still smells good again, just like you made the whole thing from scratch.

- [Pamela] Yes, yes.

- And so that's what I like to do.

- So we've got our chicken chopped and we're gonna set this aside.

The next thing we need to make is our pie dough.

- Yes.

- So make our pie dough, Miss Mary.

- So, I make my pie dough pretty traditionally, but there's a couple things that I do differently than I think a lot of people do.

Well, one is I use local flour.

I do a blend, I do a blend of King Arthur and Carolina Ground, which is milled in Asheville, and it just gives it flavor.

And again, you know, supporting local and incorporating that into pretty much everything I do is important.

So I blend those two with a little bit of salt.

So we're gonna mix those together.

So another trick, so when you're makin' pie dough, the two biggest things is not to overmix it, 'cause that develops gluten, which is gonna make it tougher.

- [Pamela] Right.

- And then the fat.

So we have two different fats here that I use.

So we use butter, just unsalted butter, and a lot of people use a blend of shortening and butter because they both kinda contribute different things.

The butter gives it flavor, the shortening is gonna coat it to make it really tender.

- Right.

- So I have found, I also make a veggie pot pie, and I found, this is called Earth Balance, and it is a vegan butter substitute.

And it freezes, it gets nice and hard like butter does when it's cold, so it works perfectly for baking.

So I use a blend of Earth Balance and butter because I have found it just gives a really tender crust and it still has a little bit of the flavor.

So it's kinda the best of both worlds.

So another trick I use is a cheese grater.

So you're wanting to get, you know, you'll see the sizes, you want pieces of butter, which is gonna give you the flakiness, but you also wanna get it really well incorporated into the flour 'cause that gives you the tenderness.

So the fat from the butter is gonna kind of coat the flour, so that when we add the water, it doesn't get, it stays nice and soft and tender.

So the cheese grater is great.

If you're makin' a big batch of dough, you can also use the grater attachment on a food processor.

This is gonna give you the pieces that you need without havin' to do all the work.

- Remember, for your pie dough, really cold butter.

If you don't have a box grater, you could shred it on, with your knife, cut it up into little pea-size pieces.

- Yep.

- You can use one of those wire dough cutters to cut it into pea-sized pieces.

But a box grater is just one of those magic things that just solves a lot of problems.

- So now we're gonna use our hands.

And I don't, I try not to use any other equipment for this because it's really easy to overwork it.

- [Pamela] Yes, it is.

- The other, the only other thing I would say that if you really wanted to, that works well, is a food processor, but your butter has to be very cold.

- [Pamela] Yes.

- And so you can pulse it in the food processor to kinda achieve the same thing, but you just want to use your hands and work it in and make sure that your flour, you want a little bit smaller than pea-sized pieces of fat left in it, but you also want to make sure that it's evenly distributed and incorporated really well.

So next to me over here, we've got some ice water.

So that's, again, just gonna keep the fat nice and cold.

And once we get the fat all the way incorporated the way we want to, it almost looks, like, streusely.

So keep workin' it a little bit, we're almost there.

And if you over it, well, the reason I don't like to use a mixer is 'cause you can overwork it.

And if you overdo it, even I've done it before, definitely.

But if I try to do it in a mixer and I let it go too long, and then it turns into like shortbread almost, and you can't even add water to it and you definitely can't roll it out.

- Right.

So, you want to have enough gluten developed with the water and the flour that you can roll it, and that it's gonna have some elasticity, but not too much, 'cause you really want it to, you don't want too much gluten.

So you're kinda findin' the balance between enough that you can roll it and not overdoin' it so that it stays tender.

Alright, so this is kinda what you're lookin' for before we add the water.

So we've got our cold water, and you really don't need much.

I like to keep a little more than I need, and, but a couple tablespoons usually does it, and we want just enough to bring it all together.

- And we're making sure that water is ice cold.

- Very cold, yes.

- We're not putting the ice in there, but we want that cold water to keep that butter cold and solid.

- Yep.

And if a little ice goes in, no big deal, it's just gonna melt, but.

- [Pamela] It'll melt out.

- [Mary Jayne] Yeah.

So you can see it's startin' to come together, but we don't wanna overdo it.

So now that I can feel the wetness here, we can slowly start to kind of form the dough.

- [Pamela] There you go.

- But again, just, once it rests, it's gonna come together even more.

Okay, so now we can let this dough rest.

You can, if you're makin' a bigger batch, take it outta your bowl, use your bench scraper.

And then again, without overworkin' it, you wanna kinda form a little bit of a disc and that's gonna help it chill evenly.

- [Pamela] There you go, yeah, that looks great.

- And so now we have enough for two pies, and the way that I make the pie, I only do one crust, so we have enough for two pot pies here.

So we're gonna put this aside and let this chill in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.

This is also something you could do a day ahead of time, or if you make a big batch and freeze it, it works well that way, too.

- You'll be ready.

- [Mary Jayne] Alright.

- And so what we have here is dough.

We have these discs that you pre-made.

- [Mary Jayne] Yep.

- [Pamela] And they're ready to go.

So this is exactly what she's talking about here.

- [Mary Jayne] Yep.

- [Pamela] Is just to go ahead and make your disc dough.

There's actually two discs in here, but they're, they're really nice little pieces of dough.

I'm gonna let her go ahead and roll them out.

- Yeah.

- And they're ready to go.

- Like you saw when we made it, I like to go ahead and shape it in this shape so that it's easy to roll out when it's time to do that.

- It's not easy to get a circle out of it when it starts as a circle.

- Yes, yes.

- Start as a triangle, it's kinda hard to get a circle.

- It's, yeah, you're gonna have a hard time.

So we're gonna dust our work area a little bit so that we don't have any sticking dough.

We're gonna do the top and the bottom.

And then we're gonna just gently, so I like to start from the middle and go out, give it a little turn, go to the middle and go out.

If you start to get any dough sticking to the table or your rolling pin, just hit it with a little bit more flour.

So you want to keep goin' until you have a nice even dough.

- [Pamela] That's a nice way of getting it into a circle.

- Yeah, just keep rotatin' it, and that way you stay even, and you don't get weird shapes.

But the beauty of the way I do the dough, too, is like, even if it's not exactly perfect, you're kinda goin' for a rustic look anyway.

So, no big deal.

After all the years at Amelie's of all the French pastries havin' to be absolutely perfect, it's nice to be able to have a little bit of a, little more organic shapes and looks to things.

Okay.

So you see this is bigger than the pan, and you want it to be bigger than the pan because of that little hangover dough that we have on the edge.

So one little trick I also like to do when you're movin' dough from your work table to your pan, there's two things you can do.

One, you can roll it, roll it on here, and then roll that right into your pan.

- [Pamela] And it's really important when you do this not to stretch your dough.

- Correct, yes, 'cause again, that's the gluten, so, like, not overmixing it, not over-rolling it.

And so once we're here, you just want to kinda settle it in.

- Lift it up and set it in there.

- [Mary Jayne] Exactly, you don't wanna stretch it.

- The thing is, if you stretch your dough, what's gonna happen when it cooks, it's gonna shrink on you and you're gonna end up with a misshapen pie.

- Yeah.

- You know, so don't stretch your dough, roll it over there.

You can also take it and fold it into quarters.

- Yes, I was gonna, yep, I was gonna show you that.

So this is the other process.

So you fold and fold, and that's gonna give you the opportunity to not tear your dough or stretch your dough when you're movin' it to your pie pan.

- [Pamela] And then it just falls naturally right into the pie pan, that's great.

- We got our pie dough done, we're letting it rest, and you can put that in the refrigerator while you're doin' this part.

It's nice to let it, even after you roll it, let it rest a little bit, and that's gonna keep it from the shrinkage that you were talkin' about earlier.

- Awesome.

- So yeah, pie dough is in the fridge and we're gonna now make our chicken stock that we made earlier, we're gonna thicken it with a roux and that's gonna be kinda the sauce gravy part of the pot pie.

About two tablespoons or so of butter, and we're gonna melt that down in our pot.

- Now you're just using regular butter in here.

- [Mary Jayne] Just unsalted.

I'm just stirrin' the butter until we get it all melted.

So we're like a medium heat or so.

- Okay, nothing too hot, you don't want to burn the butter.

You're just trying to melt the butter.

- Exactly, and at this point you don't wanna walk away from it.

- No.

- So we're gonna add about the same amount, about two or three tablespoons of flour, and then we're gonna go back to stirring.

So at this point, it's gonna start to come together like a paste, almost.

And you wanna make sure you stir and stir and stir, you don't want any clumps of flour.

It's gonna get in the edges, and then you wanna let it cook just a little bit, like you were saying, to get a little bit of a nutty smell.

The smell is really kinda how you know.

It'll start to bubble a little bit, but again, you don't wanna overdo it.

We can move that stock over here.

- [Pamela] Okay.

- Just right here, please.

And that, that ladle.

So I like to ladle it in a little bit at a time.

That way you can kinda get the right consistency.

If you put too much in, you're gonna end up with a very loose kinda gravy.

So this is another important part of, make sure in your stirring gettin' all around your edges.

- [Pamela] Get it all incorporated.

- [Mary Jayne] All of it, yes.

And so this is gonna kinda make the gravy.

- [Pamela] And here's a little tip, too: make sure your roux is a different temperature than your stock.

So you're gonna have a hot roux, so make sure your stock has been cooled down a little bit, and that's gonna help you thicken that sauce without getting lumps in it.

- Exactly.

Alright, so we're gonna keep stirrin' and stirrin', and then as it starts to get, it's gonna come to a boil, and that's when you, that's gonna see where you see the thickness.

So if it's a little too thin, or, I'm sorry, a little too thick, you could add a little bit more chicken stock.

I think we're probably right where we need to be.

Alright, so we are gettin' thick.

We're gettin' little bubbles around the edges and that's when you're gonna see it.

I think we're perfect.

This is beautiful consistency, it's shiny, it's smooth, there's no lumps in it.

If you don't do that continuous stir, you will get lumps.

- [Pamela] You will get lumps.

- And that is not a pleasant experience.

So this is all set, so we're gonna turn off our heat, move it aside, and we're done with our stock for now.

- So now we need to get our veggies ready, right?

- Yes, so we're gonna just set this over here.

Just leave that in that.

Yeah, so you know, since we have the butter in the roux we have the butter in the crust, we're gonna use butter sauté.

You could also use olive oil if you wanted to, or any kinda oil that can handle a little bit of heat.

And so we're, again, we're just gonna melt our butter down in our pot.

We got onions, celery, carrots.

The farmer's markets honestly are one of my favorite things.

It's like such an amazing community.

We love bartering at the end of the market.

- I know, really, right?

- That's the best part.

So everybody trades and you get to go home with all kinds of great stuff.

- [Pamela] Right, exactly, "say, you wanna trade?"

Yeah.

- Alright, so you want to make sure that your pan is hot, your butter is melted, gettin' a little bubbly, and we're gonna add in our onions.

Again, if you're tryin' to save time, you could have your veggies chopped the day before, stock could be made the day before, dough, of course, can be made before.

So, it is labor-intensive, but you can break it up a little bit.

- Yeah.

This is not the kind of thing you're gonna come home at 5:30 and say, "I have to have dinner by six."

- Correct, absolutely.

- [Pamela] This takes probably a couple days planning to really get it done right.

- [Mary Jayne] Yes, yep.

- You know, you gotta make your stock and then do your pie dough.

So it's a nice, special thing to do.

I love chicken pot pie.

- Yeah, me too.

It's one of my favorite, favorite comfort foods.

And again, it was all something, it was like my go-to to give to people as gifts, and so that's why it seemed like, you know, the right first step for my business.

So these are all just gonna sauté.

You don't really want any color, but you do want it to get a little bit translucent, and that's just gonna take just a few minutes to get nice and, whoops, cooked.

So we've got these sautéed.

And so now we're gonna mix everything together, season it.

The herbs we use, rosemary and fresh thyme.

- [Pamela] And just chop it up nice and fine.

- Just chopped it up nice and fine.

You don't really, rosemary is something you don't want, like, a big chunk of.

- No, you don't.

- Not pleasant, and don't skimp and go dry.

The dry herbs, it's just not the same.

- [Pamela] Just use fresh.

- Our sauce is here, it has thickened up a little bit.

When we add everything else, as it cools, it will stiffen up a little bit, but when it heats back up, it's gonna be nice and bubbly.

So we're gonna add our peas into this.

We're gonna add all of our chicken into this.

- 'Cause it is a chicken pot pie.

- Yes, and then we're gonna add our veggies into this.

I might hold off, I think we can get probably two pies out of that.

So we're gonna save some of this and then give it a nice stir, add in our herbs, salt and fresh pepper.

Fresh pepper is the best.

- [Pamela] It is the best, isn't it?

- It's the way to go, absolutely.

Do you know what, I might add one little, little ladle of chicken stock just to loosen this up a little bit, and then we'll be ready to put it in our pie.

I'm gonna hold onto this ladle so that we can put that into the pie.

We're gonna get 'em close so we don't make a mess, and just ladle right on in there.

- [Pamela] And it's a good idea to go ahead and line your sheet pans with tin foil or parchment paper or something, so when the pie bubbles over, you don't have a big cleanup.

- [Mary Jayne] Absolutely.

- Boy, that looks fantastic, look at how colorful that is.

- Smells so good.

So, this is the way I like to do the dough.

Most people would roll a second dough which you could have set aside.

So if that's your preference, you can do that, just set it aside, pull it back out at this point.

But I like to, almost like a galette style.

- [Pamela] Yes, that's the French coming out in you.

- [Mary Jayne] Yes, exactly.

So then we just kinda fold each little edge.

- [Pamela] Oh, that's beautiful.

- [Mary Jayne] And then we're ready for the oven.

- So we got our pie in the oven.

- Yes, we did that at 350.

- 350.

- And when you make it fresh like those two, the filling's already cooked, so you're really just trying to get a nice brown on the crust and get that filling to be nice and bubbly.

So you can do 350 to 375, depending on your oven, for about 45 minutes.

Again, you're just lookin' for that nice dark brown and a bubbly filling.

- [Pamela] Okay.

If you have it from frozen, you can definitely start at 350 to a little lower temp, 'cause it's gonna take a while to get that filling baked again.

So that's gonna be more like an hour, hour and a half, if you're comin' from frozen.

- I was just gonna say, if it's frozen, it's gonna take a little bit longer.

- Yes.

We got a nice golden brown crust.

- [Pamela] Oh, he looks fabulous.

- [Mary Jayne] So good.

- Have a plate, it's my plate.

- [Mary Jayne] Alright, and so you see that crust has got a nice flakiness to it.

- [Pamela] Oh, it looks great.

- [Mary Jayne] And it's tender.

- Oh yum, yum, yum, yum, chicken pot pie.

Local ingredients.

Here we have a beautiful chicken pot pie made with flour from Asheville and local farmers.

Look at this fabulous pie.

I hope you guys decide to go ahead and make a chicken pot pie at home from scratch.

Try it with a stock, try it with your fresh veg.

And if you don't want to make it from stock, don't want to make it from, go get a rotisserie chicken and go buy your chicken stock.

But by all means, guys, make a chicken pot pie, because they're ultimate comfort food.

- It is.

- And it really is delicious, and I hope you enjoy it as much as we've enjoyed making this today.

Thank you, Mary Jayne.

- Thank you.

- And Thoughtful Baking Company, chicken pot pie, classic local ingredients.

Thanks for watching this episode of Charlotte Cooks, and if you want to grab the recipe, you can get it off of our website at pbscharlotte.org, or you can send me an email at Pamela, P-A-M-E-L-A, dot Roberts, R-O-B-E-R-T-S, @cpcc.edu, and I'll be happy to send you a copy of the recipe.

But thanks for watching this episode of Charlotte Cooks and we'll catch you next time.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] A production of PBS Charlotte.