leftovers

torta salata “nella pentola” con pollo / chicken pot pie revisited

| Simona
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"antique" pot pie (partially cut)

This is my first experience with pot pies. As far as I know, we don't have a name for it in Italian: torta salata nella pentola is the literal translation (pentola is Italian for pot). For my rendition, I used a small soufflé dish.

This pot pie was inspired by Susan The Well-Seasoned Cook, who after Thanksgiving suggested to use leftover turkey to make a pot pie. There was no turkey on our table on Thanksgiving: I cooked other dishes, a story for another day. I called my pot pie "revisited" because I honestly wasn't very attracted by the concept of pot pie until Susan's suggestion made me revisit my attitude — and with good results!

But her suggestion immediately sparked the idea of turning leftovers into something new and appetizing. Here is what I used:

I basically assembled the ingredients and put the result in the oven.

bean, mushroom and chard stew

zimino di fagioli

Leftover zimino di fagioli + leftover roast chicken =

pot pie filling

= the pie filling

Preheat the oven to 375 F.

Take a 4 1/2-inch soufflé dish and add leftover zimino di fagioli. Do not overfill the dish.

Add some leftover roast chicken, mostly breast, diced and stir it in.

Take 1/4 of  the amount made by the recipe for "alternative" puff pastry (about 3 oz. / 83 g), roll it and use it to cover the dish, sealing well around the edge. (While I have not tried making the recipe with regular puff pastry, I don't see why it would not work with it.)

Make some egg wash: Lightly beat one egg with a tablespoon of water. Apply some egg wash to the puff pastry surface and put the dish in the oven. Bake until the surface is nice and golden (25 minutes or so). Let rest a few minutes before serving. The recipe makes a big portion or two small ones.

I took a number of photos of both pot pies I made when I took them out of the oven, and none of them was good enough. The nicest photo was taken after I had made a small cut on the surface to reveal the filling.

image from 2.bp.blogspot.comI am submitting this post to the November edition of Monthly Mingle that has Pot Pies as theme. The event was created by Meeta of What's For Lunch, Honey? and is hosted this month by Susan, The Well-Seasoned Cook.

This post contains the roundup of the event.

Click on the button to hear me pronounce the Italian words mentioned in the post:

torta salata "nella pentola" con pollo

or launch the torta salata "nella pentola" con pollo audio file [mp3].

[Depending on your set-up, the audio file will be played within the browser or by your mp3 player application. Please, contact me if you encounter any problems.]

pot pie, beans, chard, mushrooms, chicken

lenticchie di Castelluccio con avanzi di pollo arrosto e patate al forno / Castelluccio lentils with leftover roast chicken and baked potatoes

| Simona

[cliccare il link per andare alla versione in italiano]

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For our Thanksgiving dinner, I roasted a chicken, one of a batch locally and organically pasture raised by our friend Don (a.k.a. the accidental chicken farmer). The recipe for the roast chicken (pollo arrosto) is not mine but Thomas Keller's and was described in this guest post. Hence, there was no leftover turkey in my fridge, but leftover chicken (avanzi di pollo) upon which to let my creative juices flow.

To go with the almost five-pound chicken, I roasted two lbs. of locally grown, organic fingerling potatoes. After carefully scrubbing the potatoes, I used my nebulizer sprayer to distribute olive oil over them, then added  a generous amount of finely chopped fresh rosemary leaves, salt and freshly ground black pepper, gave a good stir and baked in a pan at 375 F until done. We partook of the roast chicken and of the potatoes, but left a good quantity on the plate, to undergo some transformation before reappearing on the dinner table.

In a previous post, I have introduced you to lenticchie di Castelluccio, the small lentils that are grown in an area of my home region (Umbria). These are the lentils I grew up eating and the ones I like. I brought back some from my recent trip to Italy. The store in Perugia where I get locally grown legumes is called Bavicchi, in Via dei Priori (downtown), the road that starts under the arch surmounted by the clock (only the top part of the arch is visible in the photo, on the left). As an aside, the reason why I took this photo was because I love the windows of the Palazzo dei Priori. (And I hope you'll forgive me for taking the chance to show you another photo of my home town.)IMGP4252

Not sure what directed my thoughts towards lenticchie while considering solutions for my day-after dilemma, but once that happened, I did not stop until the pairing of the little legumes with my leftovers was a reality held in a bowl. I cooked a cup of lentils in two cups of water with an unpeeled clove of garlic (spicchio d'aglio in camicia) and a bay leaf, until tender (about 20 minutes), then let them rest (after removing the garlic and bay leaf) while I prepared the leftovers. I diced the chicken, saving bones and trimmings to make chicken broth, and then cut the potatoes into bite-size pieces (half-inch slices, actually).

I added chicken and potatoes (including the rosemary bits left behind in the bowl that held the potatoes) to the lentils together with half a cup of homemade vegetable broth and heated until everything was nice and hot. The addition of more broth would have pushed the dish towards the soup camp, but I was happy with a denser consistency. I adjusted the salt and served immediately. A perfect body- and soul-warming dish for a windy day, sunny, but chilly.

MLLA17LogoSmall[1] This is my submission for My Legume Love Affair – 17th Helping, the popular, legume-centered event that is the brainchild of Susan, The Well-Seasoned Cook and is hosted this month by Sra of When My Soup Came Alive .

Here is the roundup. If you could not participate this month, you can check who is hosting the next edition of the event.

Click on the button to hear me pronounce the Italian words mentioned in the post: 

lenticchie di Castelluccio con avanzi di pollo arrosto e patate al forno

or launch the lenticchie di Castelluccio con avanzi di pollo arrosto e patate al forno  audio file [mp3].

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Newrule

lenticchie di Castelluccio con avanzi di pollo arrosto e patate al forno

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Per la festa del Ringraziamento la tradizione vuole che si prepari l tacchino, ma io invece ho arrostito un pollo ruspante del nostro amico Don secondo questa ricetta, e l'ho accompagnato con patate "fingerling" bio cotte al forno (intere) con rosmarino, sale e pepe. Visto che eravamo solo in due, di avanzi ce n'erano a sufficienza per un piatto creativo con le lenticchie di Castelluccio.

Ho cotto 200 g di lenticchie in poco meno di mezzo litro d'acqua con uno spicchio d'aglio in camicia e una foglia d'alloro, poi le ho lasciate riposare mentre tagliavo il pollo a cubetti e le patate a pezzi (di fatto, a fette, dal momento che le patate "fingerling," come dice il nome, hanno la forma di dita). Ho poi aggiunto pollo e patate alle lenticchie (dalle quali avevo rimosso aglio e alloro), insieme a 250 ml circa di brodo vegetale. Ho scaldato tutto ben bene, ho aggiustato il sale e ho servito subito le lenticchie fumanti.