Recipe: Anand Sastry's Chicken Pot Pie

Learn to make chicken pot pie with this excellent recipe from Highway Restaurant & Bar chef Anand Sastry.

Pie Dough Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups bleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
1 1/2 sticks of butter
4 tablespoons ice water
1 egg white

Filling Ingredients:

5 tablespoons of chicken fat
1 tablespoon of margarine
1 chicken, spit-roasted or roasted and flaked
1 1/4 cup of flour
2 pints of strong chicken stock
4 carrots
5 sticks of celery
1 onion
1 leek
1 bunch of flat parsley, picked
Salt
White pepper

Directions:

1. Place flour, salt, sugar, vegetable shortening in a mixer for a few minutes.
2. Add chopped, chilled butter and ice cold water mix until it forms a dough.
3. Leave to chill 4 hours.
4. Chop up the vegetables, roughly, and picked parsley, place in chicken stock and cook until tender.
5. Strain and keep the stock.
6. Place chicken fat, margarine in a pan. Add the flour until it forms like crumbs.
7. Add the warm stock very slowly, little at a time, until it becomes a thick sauce, then season with salt and pepper in a bowl.
8. Place flaked chicken and vegetables, season with salt and pepper, then add the warm sauce, until in binds together.
9. Leave to cool.
10. On a floured table, roll the dough into a circle that depends on the size of pie dish you have, 1/4 inch thick.
11. Add the filling, roll out the top, same as the bottom.
12. Cut and trim sides, brush with egg white and place in fridge for an hour.
13. Bake at 380 degrees for 40 minutes and then turn down to 350 degrees for another 20 minutes.
14. When brown, leave to cool and then serve.

Recipe courtesy of Highway Restaurant & Bar in East Hampton, highwayrestaurant.com