Sweet Tea and Tacos
A born and bred Southern wife and a laid back Southern California husband talk about Food and Family.
Sweet Tea and Tacos
From Flaky Crusts to Southern Traditions in the Kitchen
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Step into the warmth of our kitchen where nostalgia simmers on the stovetop, and tales of culinary traditions bubble up like a comforting broth. This time around, we're ladling out secrets for the ultimate chicken pot pie, a dish that's stitched into the quilt of American cuisine. From the importance of choice chicken to the flaky, butter-laden bliss of a homemade crust, we're serving up the how-tos and hearty laughs—especially when our four-legged sous chefs eagerly await their share. And while we're tugging at the heartstrings, join us for a journey down south, reminiscing about church potlucks and the delicate art of chicken and dumplings that could start a family feud or seal a friendship.
Then, Dave and I swap stories from our shelter-at-home saga, stirring up more than just stews and sauces. We discovered joy, resilience, and that sometimes a failed beans and rice can turn into a triumphant Cincinnati chili. Each episode in the kitchen became an adventure, and we invite you to pull up a chair and share your own. So, whether you're seeking to perfect your pot pie prowess or simply need a dash of inspiration to spice up your home cooking, this episode promises a feast for your ears and your appetite.
Homemade Chicken Pot Pie Preparation
Speaker 1Welcome to 15 Tacos . I'm Dave and I'm Jen coming to you from our kitchen and we've got cookbook spread out and we've been , you know , doing our prep for the episode . This week we're talking about chicken pot pie . Now , I grew up I didn't really have chicken pot pie growing up , but I really remember that when I do have had had it , like when we moved here . Well , first of all , I don't really think of chicken pot pie as a very southern thing .
Speaker 2Well , let me tell you the difference . I think I think is that chicken pot pie is more of a just an American thing . Right , and that's gonna be with vegetables in it . Right , things like carrot .
Speaker 1English peas , corn , that stuff . Yeah , I remember having it .
Speaker 2Right , chicken pot pie is more of a southern thing . Gotcha and it's kind of a cousin , I guess in a way to like chicken and dumplings .
Speaker 1Gotcha , and I know you know I way we make it and the way you've seen it was sometimes it's a pie crust and then sometimes it's a biscuit , like basically just biscuits put on top . But that's the one I never really liked .
Speaker 2Yeah it . It can be a little doughy .
Speaker 1Yeah , the pie crust one was always the good one . Uh-huh yeah and that's what you make . Now , how did you kind of start getting ? When did you start making pot pie or pot chicken pie ? Right , I ?
Speaker 2should say Well , I guess the reason that I started making it and it would probably be around the time we got married was because I ate it . Growing up , my mom made it and it was one of my favorite things . Now and I think I've referenced this on a different episode , I think maybe the one about Mother's Day and some of the cooking that our mothers did but my mom's version was actually a shortcut version because you know , and I've mentioned , that she had some health issues .
Speaker 1Right .
Speaker 2And so to make dough from scratch was kind of a big task , so she just used , like the frozen pie crust , right , okay , that you'd get at the grocery store . You know it comes . They came in in a tin and everything Right , okay , she would just let them thaw a little bit and cut , cut them , she cut strips and and you know , that was , that was her , her crust , she would do . You know , the lattice top . Okay , but it was one of my favorite things .
Speaker 2It was just very comforting and it was typically kind of a Sunday dinner , you know . Sunday after church type meal , but you know my mom's deceased , of course , and so I called my aunt , her sister , to see did they eat that growing up ? You know was that something that they had , and she said , yes , that , that that my grandmother did make a homemade chicken pie , gotcha . And so you know , mom was kind of carrying on that tradition . She just had to amend it a little bit you know and , like I said , do a shortcut .
Speaker 2but anyway , when you know , I started making it . I wanted to do it across from scratch and I found this really amazing crust that I've used all these years . And it's just kind of become one of my things , oh yeah .
Speaker 1And the kids love it , I love it , and to me the crust is a huge part of it .
Speaker 2Well , it is , it definitely is .
Speaker 1And so you know , and when you look at recipes , there's so many recipes out there today that are shortcut this , shortcut that , and shortcuts aren't bad .
Speaker 2No .
Speaker 1But you do sometimes lose flavor in them and there's ways to do it and we'll talk a little bit about our method or your method that you can still get a lot of flavor and it doesn't take . It doesn't have to take a lot of time .
Speaker 2Right , right .
Speaker 1So basically kind of describe your method a little bit .
Speaker 2Sure , well , what is really key is also your chicken . So you need to start with some good quality chicken , and I recommend getting some that has the skin on and the bone in , because that's where you're going to get your flavor . But you know , you can go with whatever you prefer white meat , dark meat , meat , a mix of both . You can cut up an entire chicken . You know , however you want to do it , you're going to basically boil that or kind of simmer it on the stove , and it makes its own stock or broth , whatever you want to call it , and I would typically add bay leaf , of course to that .
Speaker 1Oh , gotta have the bay leaf .
Speaker 2Gotta have the bay leaf , but then maybe y'all throw in some peppercorns , or , if I've got it like some celery stalks and stuff like that . Garlic maybe , yeah , maybe , and you just kind of let that slowly cook you know , probably for about an hour on the stove , and then you've got that wonderful chicken to start with the stewed chicken and the broth .
Speaker 2And the broth . So then , typically , you know , while the chicken is cooking , that's a good time to then go ahead and make your crust . And you know I've done it several different ways . I have done it in the food processor , ha-ha Food processor . And that would be a time saver and it works pretty well , I would say .
Speaker 2And then you , you know , make it in , shape it into a disc wrap it in you know some kind of saran wrap type of something , put it in the fridge and let it rest for at least 30 minutes or an hour . Then you get your chicken after it's finished and you have to , you know , get the stuff off the bone .
Speaker 1You gotta go through and get it off the bone Get the skin and you gotta get all that . You have to separate all that out . You call it picking the chicken .
Speaker 2Yeah , picking the chicken , and our dogs go nuts when we're doing that that's their favorite thing . They know what's going on and they know they're going to get some good scraps .
Speaker 1They know there's some chicken scraps , that's right .
Speaker 2And then you have to make . Well , I make a salt or I make a white sauce . You make a white sauce Kind of like a bechamel or something to go in the pie , and I start with , you know , butter . I do a ring and add some of that good broth to it and everything . Then comes the assembly .
Speaker 1Right , and you put it together , and you make it , put it all together , but just that crust , the crispiness of the crust , with the creaminess and the chicken , oh , just like the best creamy chicken . It's just a great combination Very very comforting , very comforting . Very hearty , you know . But talking about shortcuts , you know it's one of those things where , yeah , you could do a rotisserie chicken and a frozen pie crust and this and that and you could . You know , the other thing you could do is kind of space it out a little bit now .
Speaker 2Exactly , and that's one of the things we do .
Speaker 1For instance , get your chicken , throw it a pot with water , let it cook on the stove while you're doing other things .
Speaker 2Right .
Speaker 1Cool it off , put it in the fridge , that's done .
Speaker 2Right , and then it can sit overnight . Yeah , and then you can . You know , maybe you don't have time that day to make it , so it's , but the chicken's already cooked , and then the next day you make your crust and put it all again .
Speaker 1Right , you can stage these things out like make your crust . Exactly it can be in the fridge overnight .
Speaker 2It doesn't care about that , oh sure .
Speaker 1So those are things you could do to kind of keep the scratch cooking elements of it in that homemade goodness .
Speaker 2Without it being just this ginormous order . Two , two and a half three hour big production Right and then you're just pulling it out .
Speaker 1You get your chicken , boom . Make a white sauce , roll your dough , stick it in the oven .
Speaker 2Yeah .
Speaker 1You know , and the butter and the you know , those you cook really know the high crust butter loves being cold .
Speaker 1Oh yeah , and that just helps it puff and you know the kids love it . I mean they just love it . It's a very mom dish . That's one of those dishes we talked about that the kids are gonna remember from you , right ? But yeah , I don't know why we didn't really eat that growing up . But you know , we make , we use that technique for other things . We use the , we boil the chicken , you know for a lot of things that way , and we don't use all the stock when we make pie like that .
Speaker 2So you know but then . You can , save it , you can freeze it yeah . Or then the next day you might wanna make soup out of it or whatever .
Speaker 1Right , use it for other things , right , yeah , so there's a lot of things we made that we use that technique to make it chicken stock . We do it sometimes with chicken thighs , just all chicken thighs . Mm-hmm , that makes a nice ridge . We'll make soups that same way .
Speaker 2Mm-hmm .
Speaker 1Gumbo Gumbo . Yeah , it's a great starter of a lot of elements . Whole chickens , I think , do really well , Mm-hmm , because there's a lot more skin Right and the skin makes a really richer broth and you get gelatin Right and the bones and all of that really helps rich in the broth up . So , if I were saying the way to do it , I'd do a whole chicken . That would be me .
Speaker 2Yeah .
Speaker 1But I think you get the best broth with a whole chicken .
Speaker 2I agree , yeah , and you know this is hard to come by , but if you can find an old chicken , oh , okay . Like this is coming across sounding weird , but like a hen that is of old age , like , say , a five-year-old bird , you're gonna get a tremendous amount of flavor .
Speaker 1Right .
Speaker 1Nowadays , the chickens are just real young and they unfortunately are not as flavorful , not as flavorful and there's a lot of things that have happened to ingredients that's maybe a topic for another podcast that have changed how we do things Right , some of the research we've been doing for topics and shows . But yeah , the scratch cooking , even though you can take shortcuts , man , I just I always feel like we're losing flavor and you're kind of like not doing it justice . You know it's like why are you doing it ? You're kind of doing the idea of it , but not really the flavor . To me is really the point of it , not just making a pie Right , or at the very least do it sometimes you know , if you have to take some shortcuts sometimes just to get the meal on the table for your family .
Speaker 1There is that .
Speaker 2You know . But yeah , like make some special occasions where you kind of set aside the time and you do it all from scratch and it's a real labor of love , you know . I mean you're gonna enjoy it too .
Speaker 1Right Now , when we were talking about this and kind of our research , you know we talked about chicken and dumplings .
Southern Church Food Memories
Speaker 2And there's a lot of similarities there .
Speaker 1Yes , and did you have that growing up much ?
Speaker 2No , Really the only time I remember eating chicken and dumplings was maybe at a restaurant or as something called dinner on the ground which is a very southern thing with churches , yeah .
Speaker 1I discovered that early on .
Speaker 2It's kind of like a homecoming for people who have been part of that church in years past . They come home for this one special service and then everybody in the community brings a dish and they have it outside . It's all laid out on the table . I was like I'm not a good person . The church that my mom was part of growing up they would have dinner on the grounds and I remember eating some really , really good chicken and dumplings at that .
Speaker 2But my family didn't really do it , and that goes back to my grandfather my mom's dad . You kind of know about this . I mean , you never knew him . I never knew him . I mean he passed when I was very , very young but he had this thing about kind of dough and doughy stuff , really so you didn't like chicken and dough ?
Speaker 2No , and this is the thing about the biscuits , right , exactly so he like on biscuits we can talk more about this and I've written a blog about it , but he didn't want a lot of dough in his biscuit . He just wanted a top crust and a bottom crust .
Speaker 1Well , I can see how he'd like the chicken pie .
Speaker 2He didn't like dumplings for that same reason , because he just felt like it was this kind of gummy , doughy motion in his mouth , and so I think probably my grandmother just would do a top crust for her pie .
Speaker 1for that reason it was just nice and crisp . Yeah , that's another thing . Top crust we only do top crust and I think the couple of times we've tried a bottom crust we just hadn't had a lot of good luck with it so just be you know we just and usually we do it in like a long 11 by whatever Pyrex glass dish .
Speaker 2I would say do it either in a nice ceramic kind of rectangular casserole type dish or something like tempered glass . Yeah , I mean , but you want to roll your dough pretty thin because you want to make sure it gets cooked through . And also that lattice technique that my mom did works really well , because then the air gets all around it . Yeah , I just like having more crust . So crust is the thing there .
Speaker 1But I feel like I'm being a little ADD tonight , but going back to the dinner on the ground . So I didn't . We didn't have those . I don't know where . I was in California , so when I moved back here , I started experiencing those and man , you're right , but what we did have one time I remember we didn't have potlucks we don't have potlucks .
Speaker 1Usually it was at the school and I remember one time they called it a dime , a dip , so it was a fundraiser and everybody . So it was a potluck but not really dinner on the grounds . But there's , I , you know , in some of my work and when I was working for a public television , did a story on a church way out of the mill and out of nowhere , and it was a dinner on the grounds and it was , you know , old , old , old , old , old church , and I think this was in the early nineties and this was their 150th anniversary or something .
Speaker 1But yeah , it's just some of the best cooking you're ever gonna have it is . But it's interesting . Our daughter loves chicken and dumplings .
Speaker 2She does .
Speaker 1Yeah , I like it . Okay , but I like chicken pie a lot better .
Speaker 2Me too , me too . But , like you say , they are kind of similar and I mean we looked at some recipes because I mean we just honestly don't make chicken and dumplings .
Speaker 1Right .
Speaker 2But I guess it's sort of the same concept , it's just cooked in a different way . Now we did see that some of the chicken and dumpling dough didn't have butter in it , but it had milk . I don't put milk in my pie crust and I definitely do put butter . So you know , it's a little bit different possibly , but it's that concept of you know , using the broth , you cook the chicken the same way , and then you cook that dough , you cut it up or you can throw it in balls or pieces , and then you boil it , basically .
Speaker 1Right and to me that's what I feel like . To me that was my idea of I expected chicken and dumplings in the south , but not necessarily chicken pot . But it's interesting that you know in like said in our research , that chicken and dumplings that's it's very fairly ubiquitous around the country , but in different forms and that the south seemed to be more of the flatter dumplings .
Speaker 1to me that could almost be like you roll out a pie crust and then cut it up and just bolt it in there , yeah , whereas other areas it was more of almost like a matzah ball type dumpling . But yeah , no . So chicken pie is just one of those things we really enjoy . You know , it's a good winter dish but we like it whenever .
Speaker 2Yeah , we like it kind of year-round . Yeah , I mean you can have it in the spring and pair it with some asparagus or a salad , you know .
Speaker 1And I mean , like I said , we use that technique a lot for a lot of things . It's techniques you can use for other things , and you probably do , and you can make a head , you can stage it out , you can , you know , and but just it's hard to beat a good cream sauce and a well-made stock and a good yeah , butter-based crust . You can't really beat that .
Speaker 1And then you do shortcut some of those things you know , it's the idea of it , I mean it's not quite as good . We always a little disappointed when we try to rush it or something .
Speaker 2Well , and also we were talking about how you can do a meat pie you know , with like beef . That's kind of a similar concept , and I used to do that some .
Speaker 1Yeah , I remember we've done that a few times .
Speaker 2And so you take , you know , cubes of whatever beef .
Speaker 1I don't know sirloin or some kind of chuck roast or whatever , and you saute them , you sear it , you know .
Speaker 2And then you , I guess , add a little bit of flour and some kind of liquid , you know you could do wine or broth ?
Speaker 1Beef broth right .
Speaker 2Yeah , and make a little kind of sauce , mm-hmm , and then I would typically add some mushrooms in there .
Speaker 1Yeah .
Speaker 2And then do the crust same way .
Speaker 1Mm-hmm .
Speaker 2You know and bake it .
Speaker 1Right , so something similar if you're gonna make a beef stew almost except for the maybe less liquid and right crust , yeah , yeah . Yeah , so let's chicken pot pie .
Speaker 2Yeah , what are ?
Speaker 1our favorites .
Speaker 2Chicken pie .
Speaker 1Let me afraid I keep saying pot pie but it's chicken , chicken , pie Chicken pie , that's right . Stop saying pot pie .
Speaker 2But yeah , making me hungry right now , or ?
Speaker 1making ourselves hungry again . But anyway , that's sweet tea and tacos for this week and we thank you for listening . We hope you will continue to listen . Send us a question , you know , let us know , dave , at sweetteaandtacoscom or on Facebook . You can find us on Facebook , sweet tea and tacos , or , you know , send us an email , let us know . Send us , put a comment , give us a comment about do you have chicken pie growing
Cooking Adventures During Shelter at Home
Speaker 1up ?
Speaker 1Did you call it chicken pot pie , like I always do , or did you have chicken , chicken and dumplings yeah , and then another thing we're trying to get started with Life is taking over , like last couple of weeks we got a little busy , yeah , with things opening up a little bit yeah . But what did you cook this week ? You know , let us know we're gonna try to keep that , get that going and saying hey , what did you cook this week ? What did we cook this week , what did we cook this week ? I don't remember , but I will tell you we have cooked some things during this shelter at home .
Speaker 2I mean , we have just cooked and cooked , and cooked and we love to cook and it's been wonderful . But I feel like we got a chance to kind of hone some skills .
Speaker 1We certainly did .
Speaker 2That had been , you know , adjurating a little bit , and it's been nice .
Speaker 1It has been nice , you know , and then we don't always have time to just cook whatever we want , whatever we want . Like most everybody , we have a life and a budget and kids and business . And we did have a fun little one the other day Last week we were . It was one of those . Okay , what are we going to do tonight ? You know , it's like you know I got four things in the fridge , what I'm going to do with it , and it started out as one thing and turned into Cincinnati chili .
Speaker 2So you know we were thinking red beans and rice .
Speaker 1That was where it was starting .
Speaker 2Yeah , and then it ended up with chili .
Speaker 1Cincinnati chili over pasta . So yeah , so that's kind of the adventures in cooking we kind of have sometimes . But so let us know your adventures in cooking and keep cooking . So that's Sweet Teen Tacos . I'm Dave .
Speaker 2And I'm Jen . Thanks for listening .