Homemade Chicken and Pastry

Some of the most useful tools in the kitchen when you're trying to eat real food versus processed junk are methods. To get the ball rolling on this blog, I've been trying to pick recipes that include methods you can use to translate to other dishes. This recipe includes how to make stock. Once you've made a basic chicken stock you can translate this method into different meat and vegetable stocks that are so versatile in so many recipes.

I also think this a great example of when to use shortcuts and when to make it yourself. Stock is so easy to make and you need the cooked chicken for this dish anyway, so no need to buy expensive boxed cooking stock. Pastry, on the other hand, is rather time to consuming to make from scratch. There are several great brands that are available frozen that don't add any chemicals or preservatives, so put the rolling pin away and take this shortcut. (And, yes, I am aware that using the term Pastry is a local thing. The rest of the world calls it Chicken and Dumplings. When you say dumplings, though, I think of big dough balls. My recipe uses the thin, almost noodle like sheets.)

Chicken and Pastry:

Ingredients:

1 large or 2 small whole roasting chickens 

5 carrots, peeled

2 small or 1 large onion

6 stalks of celery

3 garlic cloves

2 bay leaves

1 tbs salt

1 tsp freshly ground black pepper

1-2 tbs olive oil

aprox. 10 cups water

2 packages of frozen pastry (check the label!)

After you've washed your celery and peeled and washed your carrots, roughly chop your vegetables. Discard the ends, onion skin, garlic skin and such.

Place your stock pot over medium heat and put just enough olive oil in the bottom of your stock pot to cover the bottom. Add your veggies and stir.

Place your chicken on top of your vegetables and season with your salt and pepper and add your bay leaves. Be sure and check the cavity of your chicken and make sure the neck or giblets aren't included. 

HEY! You just touched raw chicken....wash your hands!

Add enough water to your pot to cover your chicken. Be sure and push them down a bit with a spoon to make sure nothing has floated up so you don't add too much water.

Give everybody a good stir and increase the heat to medium high. Bring the pot up to a good boil and then reduce the heat to medium. The chicken should be fully cooked in about 20-30 minutes depending on size. Look for the skin to separate at the ends of the legs. Don't stress if the legs even fall off, then you're sure its done.

When your chickens are done, remove them from the stock and set them aside to cool. And no, they aren't supposed to be pretty., but I promise they're delicious.

Let the veggies continue to bubble in the stock on low for another 30 minutes or so. I like to let mine go until the carrots are squishy. Then strain out your vegetables and place them in a bowl. You can skip this step and just break them all up to be a part of the Chicken and Pastry if you'd like to, but be sure to stir through and check the mixture thoroughly for any pieces of chicken skin or other things that might have come off while the chicken was cooking. Also, be sure to remove the bay leaves. Towards the end of letting your stock bubble, your chicken should be cool enough to debone and shred. Just tear the skin off and discard it. You'll need a bowl to hold your chicken to put back into the pot after the pastry has cooked. Grab a hunk of chicken and shred it into bite sized pieces. 

This is my shortcut. Yep, frozen pastry. I've included the ingredients to prove that everything in them is REAL FOOD. As much as I enjoy baking, I've never had much success with the texture of homemade pastry and tend to spread flour into every corner of my kitchen.

Here they are, frozen blocks of floury goodness.

Bring your stock back up to rolling boil and add your pastry one sheet at a time, stirring after every few additions. When they've all been added, reduce the heat to medium low and let them bubble away. Your mixture will look thin, but thicken up as the pastry cook. As these little magic sheets of flour cook, they release starch into the stock and gives it that great thickness that makes Chicken and Pastry so delicious. When your pastry is soft and your stock has an almost gravy like texture, add your chicken back to mix. This is also when I use the back of a fork to slightly mash up the carrots from the stock and add them back in. Give it a taste, as this is stage where you may need to add salt and pepper to taste.

I served mine with Sweet Southern Cornbread (that recipe will be up soon, too).

The biggest compliment I've been paid in a while came from the batch of Chicken and Pastry I made for this post. One of neighbors who stopped by for dinner had just come home from Chapel Hill and had had lunch at Mama Dip's (rather famous soul food restaurant there) where he had ordered their Chicken and Pastry. He told me mine was better, hands down. I was truly flattered. Hope you guys like my Chicken and Pastry that much, too!