After coming home from my day's training, I found myself penning the following letter:

Dear Mother Nature,

Can you please reign in Jack Frost? He has already made his point. It is cold in Eastern Ontario. This morning, my course instructor accused Ottawa weather of being deceptive. He, being from "Merry Old England", was last in the city in January. Today, grass is showing, yet the temperature dipped below -12 C. With the wind chill, it felt like -20 C. After this week's set of lectures, he refuses to return to Canada!

Robbing Ottawa of a management instructor with 12 years of teaching experience aside, we are 3 days past the Vernal Equinox (March 20, 2009), the day of the year when the sun crosses the celestial equator moving northward, otherwise known as the first day of spring. Is it really necessary to have weather like this?

Daily Minimum Daily Temperatures To Date for March 2009

Daily Maximum Daily Temperatures to Date for March 2009
Source: Environment Canada

Thanks in advance!

Sincerely,
Don

I just need to find an address and figure out the correct postage. Needless to say, I'm a little fed up! For the record, I'm Ottawa-born and, like a lot of Canadians, I celebrate spring weather when the temperature is just 5 degrees below zero. -20 C is excessive!

In the meantime, it's cold enough to revisit pot pies. When you pickup personal pot pies either from frozen or from takeout, such as those from the Real Canadian Superstore's "Meal's to Go" counter, they are lacking something...

Chicken, marked beef, Pot Pies are $1.99/each

Heated up in the Toaster Oven at 325F for 30 minutes

When you break open the barely flaky pastry...

it's moist but nearly dry inside...

BTW, Superstore says it offers alternatives to the ordinary...

Plenty of Tasty Alternatives to Ordinary Takeout

Tasty or not, there is always little to NO sauce. I feel that pot pies should be loaded with sauce, binding everything together. Else, there is no impossible juxtaposition of textures, flaky pastry resting in sauce (slowly soggifying) with plenty of veg. and meat.

Here's an alternative pot pie "technique" to the fall back chicken pot pie recipe from before. It addresses the sauce issue directly:

Season and sweat off 3/4 cup of roughly chopped carrots in 2-3 tbsp of oil on medium heat until tender

French an onion (2 if small) and repeat with the onion slivers

Tear up leftover roast chicken (about a cup's worth)

Roast pork works too...

Make yourself some sauce.
There is no picture here because I've gone two ways before, with either a bechamel or a veloute. To borrow from one of the blogs that I eagerly read everyday, "Cooking School Confidential", the following lists the proper components of each:

1. bechamel: milk, white roux, a pinch of nutmeg, and half an onion garnished with one bay leaf held in place with a clove
2. veloute: roux and white stock

For a bechamel take a 1/4 cup of oil and heat it in a pan until it ripples. Add an equal amount (by weight is better) of all purpose flour, place it in the pan and stir. Just before the mixture colours, it will start smelling nutty. Remove it from the heat and slowly add 3 cups of milk that has been simmered with the above listed aromatics and spice (sans aromatics and spice of course). Add the mixture back onto medium heat until the mixture thickens and bubbles. For the veloute do the same, but use a poultry stock or broth. While it tastes heavenly with homemade, I have been known to use cartons of low sodium chicken broth that happen to be in my pantry.

The following pictures are of pot pies employing bechamel.

Add the veg and meat to the sauce and heat through

Toss everything into a pair of non-stick loaf pans

Let rest for 5 minutes...

Cover with sheets of puff pastry, cutting vents for steam and brushing with beaten egg

Bake in a preheated 400 F oven until the pies look like this:

Done

and Dusted


Portion with a plastic knife, so as not to scratch the non-stick surface

and Serve

I prefer to break up the top crust a little so I get some pastry in every bite.

My preferred service option

BTW, the above mentioned Cooking School Confidential blog is written by a witty ex-journalist/professional writer/lecturer/teacher who, after a very successful career, decided to goto culinary school. In it, she chronicles her journey into chefdom. I am in awe of her sense of humour, passion, and generosity for sharing her experiences. Skip the episode of Hell's Kitchen. Cooking School Confidential is MUCH better.



Bookmark with: