This creation is simply a hybrid of two of our favorite things to eat during the winter months: chicken pot pie and Thai coconut curry. Making it can be a bit of a labor of love but, in my opinion, it’s a perfect sleepy Sunday project that will feed you handsomely for several days afterward.
There’s not much else to say about this recipe other than how hearty and delicious it is…and also how fun it is to say three times fast.
Thai pot pie.
Thai pot pie.
Thai pot pie.
It’s stuck in your head now, isn’t it?
Thai Pot Pie:
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1 cup chicken broth
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1 cup coconut cream
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½ Tbs sugar
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1 Tbs fish sauce
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1 stalk of lemongrass, end removed, chopped in half
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1 inch of fresh ginger, sliced
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¼ cup butter
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3 Tbs Thai curry paste
Note: You have some freedom here. Our favorite to use in this recipe is yellow curry paste, but we would highly recommend using red or massaman, as well.
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1 large onion, chopped
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¼ cup flour
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2 carrots, cut into half-inch cubes (about 1 cup)
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1 large russet potato, peeled, cut into half-inch cubes (a little over 1 cup)
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1½ lbs cooked chicken, chopped (preferably a mix of white and dark meat)
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1 cup frozen peas
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Salt to taste
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1 batch of homemade pie dough, divided and formed into two disks, chilled
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1 egg, beaten for an egg wash
Make the filling:
In a sauce pan on low heat, warm the chicken broth and coconut cream along with the sugar, fish sauce, lemongrass stalk and ginger. Cover and let these flavors infuse while you prepare the rest of the filling.
Bring a dutch oven to medium heat and add the butter and the curry paste. Be sure to break up the curry paste so that there aren’t any clumps, then cook it until it becomes aromatic and only slightly darker in color. Add the onions and sauté until translucent, then add the flour to the pot. Make sure all the butter gets mixed evenly into the flour to make a roux, then cook for a couple minutes to darken it a bit, stirring constantly.
Add the chopped carrots and potatoes to the dutch oven and mix to get all the vegetables covered in the curried roux. Uncover the coconut cream/chicken broth mixture and discard the lemongrass stalk and ginger pieces. Gradually pour the liquid into the dutch oven, stirring well after every addition to avoid lumps, then cover and cook on medium low for about 10 minutes, or until the potatoes and carrots are par cooked; you don’t want to cook them all the way since they will finish cooking in the oven.
Remove the dutch oven from the heat and fold in the cooked chicken and frozen peas, then add salt to taste. Set aside to cool until barely warm, then store the filling in the fridge until chilled. This pot pie filling can be made ahead of time and will last for a few days.
Assembly and baking:
Preheat oven to 425.
Roll out half of your pie crust on a floured surface until it reaches around 12” in circumference, then transfer the dough to a 9” pie pan. Gently press the dough into the pan and trim off any excess dough hanging over the sides. Add the cold pot pie filling to your pie shell, then set aside.
Roll out the other half of your pie crust on a floured surface until it’s big enough to cover the pie. Brush the edges of the filled pie crust with water, then transfer the newly rolled pie dough on top. Trim off any excess pie crust, then seal the pie by pressing the edges of the pie with a fork, or crimping according to your preference. Cut some slits on top of the pie so that it can vent a bit while baking, then cover the pie in an egg wash.
Place the assembled pie onto a baking sheet to catch any possible overflow of filling during the baking process, then bake the pie for 60–70 minutes, rotating halfway through. The crust should be a deep golden brown and the filling should bubble through the slits a little bit when it’s finished. Let the pie cool on a baking rack for at least an hour before cutting into it.
Serves 8.
