Chicken Shepherd's Pie
Good for using leftover chicken breast meat from a roast chicken or a poached chicken (perhaps using the Chinese poached chicken method sans ginger, random vegetables, and leftover mashed potatoes. You make a "blond roux," use chicken stock (which you'll likely have if you've poached your chicken), and cream (or half and half) to make a velvety sauce that enrobes the chicken breast pieces and diced veggies. Top with mashed potatoes and cheese (we used cheddar) and cook in the oven until the pie bubbles, and the cheese browns.
Ingredients, Roughly
- 3 T butter
- 3 T olive oil
- 3-4 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1/2 - 1 cup diced onion
- fresh thyme to taste, chopped
- 1/2 cup to 1 cup each of various diced veggies
- 6 T all-purpose flour
- 2-3 cups chicken stock
- 1/2 cup cream
- 1/2 cup whole milk
- 2-3 cups shredded chicken meat
- 4 cups leftover mashed potatoes, warmed in microwave
- 1-2 cups shredded cheese for melting
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Butter an 8x8 casserole dish.
2. Heat large skillet over medium-high heat. Add butter and olive oil. When butter is melted, add aromatics (garlic, onion, and thyme). Stir for 30 seconds to a minute until flavors begin to bloom.
3. Add diced veggies in order of hardiness (most hardy to least) and stir fry until crisp-tender. Salt the veggies to taste.
4. Add flour and stir to combine with the fat. Clumps will form. This is OK. Continue to cook until the smell of flour disappears. This will take just a few minutes.
5. Add chicken stock and bring just to a boil. Turn heat down and stir until the mixture forms a thick sauce. Add cream and milk. Let simmer until the pie filling thickens again.
6. Fold in chicken meat. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste. Turn off heat.
7. Pour pie filling into buttered dish. Spread mashed potatoes over the filling.
8. Put pie in oven for 10 minutes.
9. Remove pie, spread shredded cheese over the the mashed potatoes, and return pie to oven. Let cook for 15 to 20 minutes more, or until the cheese is browned and the pie is bubbling.
10. Let sit for 10 minutes and serve.
Notes
- This is a kind of toss-in-everything-but-the-kitchen-sink recipe. For the veggies, I used a small red bell pepper, 1 medium carrot, a stalk of celery, 1 anaheim pepper, and about a 1/2 cup each of frozen corn and frozen peas that I'd steamed in the microwave. In addition, we had some leftover roasted carrots and onions that were seasoned with rosemary, thyme, extra virgin olive oil, and salt and pepper. I tossed those in too, along with the frozen corn and peas.
- We used sharp white cheddar for the cheese. Monterey Pepper Jack would have been tasty, as would parmesan.
- We had barely enough potatoes to cover the top of the pie. We also kept the potato-topped pie in the oven for only 5 minutes, so no actual browning occurred on the potatoes. The browned cheese, therefore, was a nice topping.
