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Old Fashioned Chicken Pie
Cut up 2 young chickens, put in kettle with hot water to barely cover, and boil gently until just tender. If you think you have more than 3 cups of liquid leave pot cover off toward the end until reduced. Take up chicken and keep hot. Skim surface fat off liquid; thicken with flour worked smooth with a cup of milk, cream, or evaporated milk, and poured into the pot through a sieve (if any); add another cup or more of heated cow juice and stir until mixture thickens. The amount of gravy needed depends on size of chickens and size of baking pan, and the gravy should be slightly thicker than the usual chicken gravy, requiring at least 1 tablespoon more flour than you ordinarily use.
Line a 4-quart pan with rich baking powder biscuit dough, 1/2 inch thick, or line with soda biscuit dough made with sour cream. Be sure there are no holes for the gravy to run through, and take the extra precaution of brushing the lining with white of egg to make it impenetrable, for a soaked and soggy bottom crust is an abomination. If you are not a pie maker, play safe and leave out the bottom crust, lining only the sides of the pan. Put in part of the chicken, season with salt and pepper, and dot with butter. Add 1 cup green peas fresh out of a farmer's garden (and paid for, we hope) together with 1 parboiled small onion for each serving. Lay in the rest of chicken and seasonings, using the back pieces to hold up crust in middle. Pour gravy over. Cover with biscuit dough rolled 1/2 inch thick and pierced to let out steam. Bake 1 hour in moderate oven, with more heat at bottom than at top, in order to have bottom crust well done.
I CHICKEN
A two-crust chicken pie built on stewed fowl and biscuit dough rather than pastry. The whole thing hinges on gravy thick enough to hold together under a biscuit lid, and on a bottom crust sealed against it.
- The birds"Young chickens" means small, tender birds; two of them, or one larger roasting chicken cut up, will fill the pan. The recipe gives no time, only "boil gently until just tender"; hard boiling shreds the meat and clouds the stock.
- Cow juiceSimply milk. The recipe wants roughly a cup whisked with the flour as a slurry and another cup or more heated and stirred in, so keep about a quart on hand and stop when the gravy coats a spoon heavily.
- Thickening ratioStandard chicken gravy runs about 2 tablespoons flour to a cup of liquid. The recipe asks for at least 1 tablespoon more flour than you would ordinarily use, so the gravy sets slightly stiffer than usual. Thin gravy will boil up through the seams and turn the lower crust to paste.
- Sealing the bottomThe egg-white wash is the single instruction worth obeying: brush the raw lining with white of egg before filling. The recipe's own escape route, lining only the sides of the pan, is offered to anyone who doubts their pastry.
- Soda biscuit with sour creamPeriod sour cream was naturally soured and acidic, which reacts with the soda. Modern cultured sour cream works; ordinary sweet cream does not, so use baking powder dough in that case.
- The panA 4-quart pan is about a 9x13 baking dish or a deep 10-inch round. It will hold the meat from two broilers with room for gravy.
- OvenA moderate oven is 350F. To get the promised extra bottom heat, set the dish on a preheated baking sheet or a stone on a low rack; an hour at 350F cooks the crust through and lets the filling bubble.
- Peas and onionsA cup of shelled fresh peas is roughly a pound in the pod. Parboil the small whole onions first, as directed, or they stay raw in the middle.
- YieldSix to eight servings. Count one small onion per person when you shop.