Ina's Chicken Pot Pie Soup and Puff Pastry Croutons
I'm cheating a little bit because these are two separate recipes in the book, but they go together like milk and cookies, peas and carrots, tomato soup and grilled cheese...you get the picture. Honestly, I am not sure I'll go back to making my usual chicken noodle soup after this one...and I'm not even sure I'll ever make the normal chicken pot pie again (just kidding, I will...but I'll go for this, first!). It's SO good. It might be the best recipe in the book, so far. There. I said it.
Let's break it down.
PREP
Like I say for everything, this will be easier if you chop everything up before you begin cooking. Roasting the chicken is SUPER easy, and I didn't have Wondra flour on hand, so I made a quick roux. If you have Wondra flour, it's even easier, as that instantly dissolves to thicken.
COOK
Once you've roasted the chicken, you let it cool and chop it up. For the veggies, you sauté them, and then the hardest part, like I said above, is adding your thickener. If you use the Wondra flour, it's much easier. I didn't have Wondra flour, so I used AP flour and added about 1tbsp of water to make the flour a bit of a paste, before adding it to the veggies - then you stir to make sure all of the veggies are coated before adding the rest of your ingredients. The recipe also calls for cream sherry, which I also didn't have (I know I said I'd be doing these recipes EXACTLY like the book, but sometimes life happens!), so I substituted it with white wine. To get a closer cream sherry taste, you should do white wine AND brown sugar, but I skipped the sugar. Then you bring to a boil, simmer, add the chicken and remaining veggies and DONE.
The puff pastry croutons are even easier. Thaw one sheet of the puff pastry sheet, then roll it out on a floured surface to even out the folds. Using a cookie cutter, cut out about a dozen shapes, and then place them on a lined baking sheet. Use an egg wash and brush onto each crouton, salt and pepper, bake, and DONE.
REVIEW
Like I mentioned above, I think this is the best thing I've made in the book up to this point. I would continue to substitute the cream sherry with white wine, and I might need to run out and buy some Wondra flour to have on hand. Do yourself a favor and make this tout suite!!
