WARM UP WITH A HOT POTPIE
Restaurant renditions with panache
Chicken pot pie is the culinary equivalent of a cozy set of PJs — after a long hard day it can bring simple satisfying solace. The mix-and-match chicken with vegetable variations are plenty and so are flavors, but at the end of it all the pot pie spells comfort. For potpie perfection, a flaky crisp pie crust/puff pastry dough is essential, which when tapped into reveals a saucy filling chock-full of tender chicken and an assortment of vegetables and fresh herbs. Here are the three best interpretations of chicken pot pie with panache in town.
• Vadouvan is the magical word for the Union Standard’s potpie. Vadouvan, a curry powder mix that includes turmeric, fenugreek and mustard seeds and is believed to have originated in the once French territory of Pondicherry in southern India, is sprinkled on the puff pastry along with shaved shallots and chopped chives before it is baked. The French-ified curry powder blend also is used in the veloute sauce, made with roux and a fortified chicken stock, and combined together with perfectly cooked chicken, cremini mushrooms, diced carrots and celery root. They are spooned into a puff pastry and baked in a castiron skillet. When the pot pie arrives at the table in the skillet et al, the pastry top appears to be floating in veloute and that’s because it comes with lots and lots of sauce. So even though the pastry is crisp, the bottom part soaks in the sauce
like a wet paper towel. It would help if the dish comes with a spoon and not just a fork as it is a shame to waste even a drop of the dreamy veloute, which I am adding to my last supper list. Gerber Farms Chicken Pot pie: $16. Union Standard, Union Trust Building, 524 William Penn Place, Downtown. 412-281-0738; www.unionstandardpgh.
• Nothing about the deconstructed “pot pie” at The Foundry Table & Tap is predictable, and that’s a good thing. Crisp puff pastry, which is brushed with chicken fat and seasoned with thyme and Maldon sea salt, sits like a buttery lid on top of the meat and vegetables and is crowned with a mound of micro greens. Once you work your way through the pastry, you are exposed to a juicy deboned chicken leg and thigh from Heritage Farm in Ridgway, Elk County, which are meatglued together and first cooked sous-vide and then seared. The meat is then tossed together with roasted carrots, celeriac and pearl onions in a velvety veloute sauce, made with roux and chicken stock and flecked with chopped chives. When it arrives at the table, the pot pie makes the case that it is plenty OK to deviate from the traditional blueprint because it delivers its promise — comfort.
Heritage Farm Chicken “Pot pie”: $19. The Foundry Table & Tap, 381 North Shore Drive, North Shore; 412-930-0744. www.thefoundrypgh.com.
• At Acorn, the chicken pot pie has that picture-perfect, golden-brown puff pastry that looks like a dome when it arrives at the table. When is it tapped with a spoon it reveals cubes of celery root and parsnip, halved baby potatoes, oyster and trumpet mushrooms, chiffonade-cut leeks and big chunks of tender chicken all mixed with a rich and velvety truffle bechamel sauce that is speckled with parsley. The filling is cooked on the stovetop and poured immediately into the housemade puff pastry dough, and it is the steam from the vegetables that makes the dough dramatically balloon into a dome when the pot pie is placed in the oven. Although the sauce has a definite truffle nuance, it is not overwhelming, but my oh my, does it take the humble potpie on a haute spin. The potpie is available on the lunch menu from Wednesday through Sunday and as a side with Steak Diane for dinner daily.
Pot pie: $14 for vegetarian version; $17 with chicken. Acorn, 5528 Walnut St., Shadyside. 412-530-5950; acornpgh.com.