Puff Pastry Chicken Pot Pie

I have been wearing a mask. The truck stops require it now, and the loading docks require it, and the mask is a strip of fabric between my mouth and the world, and the world behind the mask smells like my own breath, which is not pleasant and is not the point. The point is Gayle. The point is always Gayle — seventy-four, alone, fragile in ways she will not admit and I will not ignore. I wear the mask for Gayle, even though I cannot visit Gayle, because the mask is the promise: I am doing everything I can to stay safe so that when this is over, I can walk through your door again.

Dave is wearing a mask at the truck stop. He hates it. He breathes through it like a man who has been asked to breathe through a pillow, and the complaints are daily and theatrical and exactly what I expect from a man who can crawl under a truck for three hours but finds a piece of fabric intolerable. I listen to the complaints. I acknowledge them. I hand him a clean mask every morning. This is marriage during a pandemic: empathy, logistics, and a fresh mask on the counter.

The blog followers crossed twenty thousand this week. Twenty thousand people reading my words. I wrote a post called 'Feeding Your Family When the World is Scary' and it got shared twelve thousand times and the comments section was full of people saying 'thank you,' and the thank-yous were not for the recipe (a simple chicken and rice bake), they were for the permission — the permission to be scared and to cook anyway, to not have answers and to make dinner anyway, to be uncertain about everything except the fact that your family needs to eat and you can do that, you can feed them, and the feeding is the fight.

I made the chicken and rice bake — chicken thighs on a bed of rice and cream of chicken soup, baked at 350 until the rice absorbs the broth and the chicken is golden. It is the simplest recipe I make and the one that got the most response, and the simplicity is why — people do not need complicated right now. People need a recipe with five ingredients and a promise that it will work. It works. It always works.

That simple chicken and rice bake started something I didn’t expect — it reminded me that the most powerful recipes aren’t the complicated ones, they’re the ones that feel like a hand on your shoulder. So I kept going back to that well, and eventually I landed on this Puff Pastry Chicken Pot Pie: the golden crust, the creamy filling, the way it comes out of the oven looking like you had everything under control even when you absolutely did not. I made it on a Tuesday when Dave was exhausted and I was scared and Gayle felt very far away, and we ate it at the kitchen table without the news on, and for forty-five minutes the world was just dinner — and that was enough.

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 40 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour | Servings: 6

Ingredients

1 1/2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts or thighs, cooked and shredded
1 sheet puff pastry, thawed
1 cup frozen peas and carrots
1/2 cup celery, diced
1/2 cup yellow onion, diced
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups chicken broth
3/4 cup whole milk
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
Salt and black pepper to taste
1 egg, beaten (for egg wash)

Instructions

Preheat oven. Heat your oven to 400°F. Lightly grease a 9-inch deep-dish pie dish or a 9x9 baking dish and set aside.
Cook the vegetables. In a large skillet over medium heat, melt the butter. Add the onion and celery and cook for 4—5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until softened and translucent.
Build the roux. Sprinkle the flour over the vegetables and stir to coat. Cook for 1 minute to remove the raw flour taste, then slowly pour in the chicken broth while stirring continuously to prevent lumps.
Make the filling. Stir in the milk, garlic powder, and thyme. Continue to cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, until the sauce thickens, about 4—5 minutes. Season generously with salt and pepper.
Add chicken and vegetables. Fold in the shredded chicken and frozen peas and carrots. Stir to combine, then pour the filling into your prepared baking dish and spread it into an even layer.
Top with puff pastry. Lay the thawed puff pastry sheet over the top of the filling, pressing the edges gently against the dish to seal. Trim any excess pastry. Cut 3—4 small slits in the top to allow steam to escape, then brush the entire surface with the beaten egg wash.
Bake until golden. Place the dish in the preheated oven and bake for 25—30 minutes, or until the puff pastry is deep golden brown and the filling is bubbling up through the vents.
Rest before serving. Let the pot pie rest for 5—10 minutes before serving so the filling can settle and portions hold together cleanly.

Nutrition (per serving)

Puff Pastry Chicken Pot Pie — The Recipe That Held Us Together When Nothing Else Could