>
> THE CRUST: The crust can be a conventional pie crust. It can be puff
> pastry. It can be phyllo pastry. You can put [American-style] biscuit
> dough on top instead of a more traditional crust. You can leave out the
> bottom crust.
>
> THE FILLING: The filling is generally made by making a medium-thick white
> sauce, then adding cooked chicken and vegetables. You can add curry. You
> can add cheese. You can make the white sauce with cream, and then add
> sherry. The vegetables can be anything you like or have handy: Broccoli,
> carrots, peas, mushrooms, corn, green beans...just about anything will do,
> provided it's cut into fairly small dice. Given the Aussie penchant for
> beet[root], I won't say you CAN'T use it in chicken pot pie, but be warned
> that it'll try to take over the entire dish. You'll want to cook the
> vegetables a bit if they're raw; you can do that by adding them to the
> sauce while it's coming to a boil.
>
> The white sauce is a convention but it isn't mandatory. One of the most
> celebrated pot pies is the Moroccan b'stila, in which the filling isn't
> held together by a sauce at all; it's a kind of loose-meat filling inside
> a phyllo crust. (Ouarka is more authentic than phyllo, but it's much
> harder to get and *very* difficult to make.) A couple eggs are stirred
> into the meat, but they don't really bind the mixture together.
>
> Moving across the Atlantic Ocean, you could make a chicken tamale pie. As
> I make it, this kind of pot pie doesn't have a normal crust at all: You
> make a thick cornmeal batter and pour half of it into a casserole. On top
> of the batter you put what I call "chicken picadillo," which is cooked
> chicken with almonds, raisins, tomato sauce, cumin, onions, and chili
> powder. You pour the remaining batter on top and bake until the batter is
> cooked.
>
> You could make any kind of chicken curry, put it into a pie crust, bake
> it, and call it chicken pot pie.
>
> I'm at work as I write this; when I get home I'll see if I can post a
> specific basic recipe to give you a starting point for chicken pot pie.


You are just wonderful. What terrific ideas. I think I'll do something of
the sort for next week, so no hurry.

Jen