Chicken (Liver) Pot Pie.
My mind is telling me no, but my body is telling me yes. Yes, I do want to make a dinner than will take an hour and half to make for myself on a Wednesday night. Yes, I don’t give a shit about eating some organ meat on Ash Wednesday considering I haven’t been to church since Nola’s wedding and it was Jewish. Yes, I do need to use all those vegetables sitting in the crisper drawer for a week now. Yes, I do feel the need to buy these out of season mysterious fresh fava beans that appeared at my local Wegmans last week.
BISCUIT TOPPED CHICKEN LIVER POT PIE
For the Pot Pie Filling:
1 medium sized parsnip, small dice
1 large onion, small dice
4 small carrots, cut into thin rounds
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cups chicken livers, sliced thin
1 medium sweet potato, medium diced and cooked
1.5 cups fava or lima beans, cooked
salt
pepper
1. Heat olive oil in a medium to large saute pan and add parnsip, onion and carrot and cook til lightly browned.
2. Add chicken livers to pan with vegetables and cook til a light pink color.
3. Add chicken liver and vegetable mixture into a medium mixing bowl with sweet potato and lima or fava beans.
4. Salt and pepper to taste.
For the Gravy:
You can use a can of store bought chicken gravy if you like. But i happen to have some chicken stock from a few weeks ago in the freezer. I thickened by making a roux with some butter and flour and then stirring it it and adding a little bit of cream and salt. You don’t need to have a lot of gravy, just about 1 cup to moisten the filling for the pie. No one likes a dry pie.
For the Biscuits:
First of all, I would like to preface the biscuit recipe by saying that I am soooo happy to discover http://farmersandartisans.com/ here in the Buffalo area. Which is where I purchased the rendered lard from Blossom Hill Farm used in this here recipe.
5 tablespoons butter
8 tablespoons lard
salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 - 2 cups of flour
1/8 cup honey
1/8 - 1/4 cup whole milk
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
1. In a large mixing bowl combine tablespoons of butter and lard.
2. In a smaller bowl combine 1 1/2 cups flour with salt and baking powder.
3. Add flour mixture to butter bowl and cut into flour using a pastry cutter or pulse together in a cuisinart until the butter and lard are like little pearls in the flour.
4. Add honey to mix. Slowly combine milk stirring in with a wooden spoon until the mixture seems moist but not sticking to your hands wet. Just kind of dough-y.
5. This is the fun part. I like to just take it out and stamp it down with my hands on a pastry cloth or a piece of parchment with some flour on it til about 1/8 - 1/2 inch thickness. Then I take a cup if I don’t have a biscuit cutter, which I didn’t here, and cut out rounds and set them aside.
6. Place the biscuits on top of the warm chicken liver and vegetable filling and cook at 350 degrees until biscuits are lightly golden brown. About 20 - 25 minutes.
