Chicken Pie a la Waitsfield Vermont
This started as handwritten directions from JoAnn Eurich. She and Gordie ran the Masons Chicken Pie Supper for about 20 years. I have added my comments based on discussions and experience. Rick Rayfield
A Church or Masonic Chicken pie starts with ten pounds of raw cut up chicken.
Discard neck and giblets. And we don’t add any vegetables- no peas, carrots, corn etc.
Wash chicken with cold water. Place chicken in a big pot and cover with water, add a little onion for flavor. Simmer for 1 ½ hours or until real tender and meat falls off bones.
I like to boil the chicken for an hour late at night (Friday), then let cool until next morning.
Pick chicken meat from bones. Discard bones and skin. (I do this Saturday morning or early afternoon)
I put two bowls or sink on either side of pot. Meat goes to right, bones and skins to left.
Break chicken into fork-size pieces. Yes, you will have schmaltz (chicken fat) on your hands.
Keep the stock with chicken fat floating on top for the gravy.
Heat stock to boiling.. Add 1-2 cups flour, plus salt and pepper taste
Some cooks add chicken stock for flavor. No vegetables.
I add a bit of onion powder if I forgot onion above, and a bit of Old Bay Spice
Taste your gravy. You probably won’t get any feedback or a piece of your own pie. This is it.
(Most suppers have someone to thin or thicken and adjust seasoning on the gravy that goes on the table, but not in your pie.) (I use a whisk to smooth gravy, and sometimes a handmixer.)
In a 10x15 pan (?), put the chicken meat, and cover with hot gravy.
Bring extra gravy to supper for mashed potatoes and to fix fried out pies. Spaghetti sauce jar is fine
Put pan with chicken and gravy in the oven at 350 for about 30 minutes, Until gravy is starting to boil.
While it is heating up in oven, make your biscuits-
Bisquick brand mix is used by many of the local ladies who bake fine pies. Directions on the box.
Half a three pound box (1.5 pounds) is about right, with about a cup of milk. To be safe, have extra ready.
Mix the Bisquick with the milk,. I knead it like bread dough about twelve times- enough to get some pastry layering, but not enough to toughen the dough. Roll out with a rolling pin or wine bottle on a
counter which is sprinkled with dry Bisquick. Roll it to about 3/8 to ½ inch thick.
Use a 2 ½ inch diameter glass or cup (I like plastic kiddie cups) to stamp out round biscuits.
Roll up the waste dough, roll it out, and cut more biscuits. The biscuits will rise a bit.
Usually about 4 by 6 - 24 biscuits to a pie. Option: Baste tops of biscuits with milk for better browning.
2005- While putting biscuits on pie, turn up oven to 425, and bake biscuits only for 15-20 minutes. More time will NOT brown them, just dry them out. To brown them, use your broiler for a minute or two! Works great!
Pull pie from oven, drop biscuits on top. Bake another 15-20 minutes.
You can turn out hard tough biscuits by turning up the heat and baking until they get the brown color you want. Yuck. White tender biscuits are OK as long as cooked. Try the broiler to brown them.
Some cooks bake biscuits and then drop them on top of hot chicken and gravy, but this is not as ideal as the biscuits do not absorb the chicken flavor.
Note: Some cooks discard some of the chicken fat, then complain their gravy does not thicken. Gravy thickens because flour combines with the fat. So don’t skim too much fat off, if at all. Fat is flavor. If you boil and let sit over night, your gravy will have lots of chicken flavor. Some cooks want more and so add store-bought gravy. Some cooks sauté onions and chicken to get browned flavor and color. No veggies. No bottom crust. Some say chicken picks up flavor from bare aluminum pan or foil. Try to use Teflon or steel pan, and cover with newspaper, brown paper, etc. And remember, no vegetables in the pie! What you do at home is your own business.
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