Recipe of the Week: Chicken Pie

The following chicken pie recipe is from The New Butterick Cook Book, by Flora Rose, co-head of the School of Home Economics at Cornell University. It was published in 1924. A professional scan of that 724-page out-of-copyright book will be one of the many bonus items included in the next edition of the waterproof SurvivalBlog Archive USB stick. This special 15th Anniversary Edition USB stick should be available for sale in the third week of January, 2021. The 14th Edition sold out quickly, so place a reminder in your calendar, if you want one.

Ingredients
  • 1 chicken
  • Salt
  • Pepper
  • Pie paste
  • FIour
  • MiIk
Directions
  1. Clean, singe and cut up chicken as for fricassee.
  2. Place in a kettle and add enough hot water to cover.
  3. Put the cover on the kettle, and simmer slowly until the chicken is tender, adding a little more water if needed.
  4. Make a gravy of the stock, using two tablespoosns flour for each cup of stock.
  5. Use for the crust a good pie paste, rolled a little thicker than for fruit pies or puff paste. Half and half proportions of drippings and chicken fat may be used for the paste.
  6. Line the sides of a deep baking dish with crust
  7. Invert in the middle of the dish a small cup or ramekin.
  8. Put in part of the chicken and season with salt and pepper, then add the rest of the chicken, and season the same way.
  9. Put in the dish two cups or more of the gravy made from broth in which the chicken was cooked.
  10. Cover the top with crust. The cup or ramekin will hold the crust up and will prevent evaporation. Most chicken pie is too dry; therefore, use a generous amount of the broth.
  11. Bake one hour, or until crust is done.
SERVING

When serving, after cutting the first slice carefully slip the knife under the ramekin and release the gravy which is held there by suction. Any gravy left over should be served in a gravy-dish.

Do you have a favorite recipe that would be of interest to SurvivalBlog readers? In this weekly recipe column, we place emphasis on recipes that use long term storage foods, recipes for wild game, dutch oven and slow cooker recipes, and any that use home garden produce. If you have any favorite recipes, then please send them via e-mail. Thanks!