Chicken Pie
Aunt Rachel Coffin
Make a rich brown chicken fricassee. Tie a bouquet of aromatic herbs with a thread and let it stand in the fricassee five minutes, then take it out. Cut up two hard boiled eggs and put them in the fricassee. Cook thoroughly over a slow fire. Have your pie crust ready, and put the fricassee in it, not forgetting to prick the top crust with an iron fork in several places to allow evaporation. Otherwise it will ferment and the result will prove disastrous.
A proper old-fashioned chicken pie — a rich brown fricassee, brightened with herbs and egg, sealed under a flaky crust.
- Start with a brown fricasseeBrown the chicken and build a dark, well-seasoned gravy first; the pie is only ever as good as the fricassee inside it.
- That “bouquet of herbs”This is a bouquet garni — herbs tied with thread so you can steep and then lift them out; five minutes is enough to perfume the sauce without turning it bitter.
- Hard-boiled eggsSliced hard-boiled eggs are a traditional chicken-pie enrichment, adding body and old-fashioned richness between the pieces of meat.
- Prick the top crustThe warning about “fermenting” is really about steam: vent the crust so trapped steam escapes, or the filling boils up and the pastry turns soggy and splits.
- Oven temperatureBake in a moderate-to-hot oven, 375–400°F (190–205°C), until the crust is deep gold and the filling bubbles.
Savory pies are among the oldest cooked dishes in the English-speaking world, and chicken pie crossed the Atlantic with the first colonists. In an age before reliable ovens and refrigeration, the crust began as a practical coffin — the old word for a thick pastry case — that sealed and preserved the meat as much as it fed anyone. Over time the pastry grew lighter and became the pleasure in itself. Enriching the filling with hard-boiled eggs and a bouquet of herbs, as here, is a very old touch, echoing the medieval love of layering savory pies with egg and spice.
From page 32 of the 1904 edition.
Original page from the book
