The other day I happened to hit Kat’s place, and then her blog, where I saw that she did a chicken pot pie, although she used standard pastry. I was thinking how much I always loved pot pies, and wouldn’t it be great to make one. Then it dawned on me: cauliflower crust, just like for pizza. Click on the image to enlarge.
Primal Chicken Pot Pie
So, I used the original crust recipe almost exactly. However, now I have a food processor and so was able to really make the cauliflower into a mush. To the cup of cauliflower, cup of mozzarella cheese and an egg, I added about a tbsp each of almond meal and coconut flour.
As for the filling, I followed Kat’s recipe with the following modifications:
- Skinless boneless thighs instead of breasts
- About a cup of organic free range chicken broth which I reduced to almost nothing
- Organic heavy cream instead of whole milk
- No flour for thickening (because of the cream)
The Pie Filling
So, as with the pizza crust where you have to cook it first, I greased the pie tins with butter and then coated the insides with dough and popped ’em in the oven at 350. Oops. Within a few minutes, all the "dough" was sitting at the bottom of the tins. Cranked up the oven to 400 and let them cook a bit more to release moisture. Next time, I’m going to roll up my cauliflower mash in paper towels to get rid of moisture. Also, more almond meal, coconut flour and maybe some butter or lard will help. Another thing I could do is stack another tin on top to keep the dough in place while it sets up.
At any rate, I took them out after a few more minutes, the dough was still pliable, and so I added a few dashes of coconut flour and was able to get the dough to adhere to the sides of the tins using a fork. Then I added the filling and covered with the remaining raw dough, and then into the oven again at 350, probably 10 minutes or so.
Remove, melt butter on top, and fire under the broiler until well browned.
Chicken Pot Pie
This was very exceedingly delicious. Definitely something I will do again and attempt to improve.
I would avoid adding more butter/lard as it will likely just make it wetter. I would try streaming the cauliflower the day before and letting it sit uncovered in the fridge overnight in a colander to dry it out a bit. Also, what I’ve noticed in my baking forays lately is that using just desiccated coconut (unsweetened) and powdered in a food processor works really well in baking and seems to be just the right amount of fat as the desiccated coconut isn’t de-fatted the same way coconut flour is, it seems to hold up really well and stays moist.
That’s a great idea about the coconut.
Thank you so much for your post, because I’ve been wondering about how regular, unsweetened desiccated coconut, ground up in a food processor, would work for baking instead of coconut flour.
p.s. Coconut flour is just too expensive for my budget.
I wonder if shredding the raw cauli and then salting it (like cabbage for kraut) to draw out the moisture would work? Then just rinse the salt of and let it dry a bit in the colander.
I usually try and dry/toast my cauli in the oven, but I’m too impatient. It always tastes good, just doesn’t look pretty 😉
Great idea!! Can’t wait to try it!
Why don’t you use potato flour, which is just dried mashed potatoes? Potatoes are surely paleo.
Regular russet like potatoes and varietals aren’t really paleo. They’re pretty recent and contain some nasty toxins. I believe it was the Peruvians who bread them from poisonous to edible about 3k years ago.
At any rate, I do use it, but in small quantities. I’ve found it to be the absolute best thickening agent for sauces, when I have a situation where I need more reduction for more thickness, but that will compromise the volume I need for the servings. Typically, a tbsp will do it, and you don’t need to do a slurry as with corn starch.
interesting. How do you explain the large amount of amylase in our saliva and stomachs though?
I don’t.
Well ,I guess ignoring all else is the best way to support your own dogma
I’m not suggesting that we’re not adapted to eating starches — we probably have been since we began cooking, which could be as early as 1.8 million years ago.
I was just saying that standard russet potatoes are a neolithic food. Of course, there are other starches like tubers, sweet potatoes and such.
This is reason enough for me:
100g portion:
Potato = 77 cal/18 carb/2 fib = Net carb 16
Cauli = 25 cal/5 carb/3 fib = Net carb 2
Potato is an inflammatory
Caulflower is anti-inflammatory
Cauliflower = 3/1 – Omega-3 ratio
Potato = 3/1 – Omega-6 ratio
Cauliflower higher is just about every micronutrient.
Potato is better in what way? Price only.
I don’t know about you, but I can eat a hell of a lot more than 100gs of either in one sitting. Average person serving is probably 300-400g.
I’d rather not eat (I used to often) 60 carbs of something that tastes like wet cardboard without butter. All part of the the famous Thanksgiving mashed potato/biscuit/pie carb coma that gets blamed on Turkey. Ha-ha
I like to drain my cauliflower in a mesh colander. I take a tea towel or paper towel and line the colander. Then I fill it with the cauliflower and suspend over the sink or a bowl. Let it sit a while. Stir a bit. Then take the towel and gather the edges, twist and make a sack (I hope this makes sense). This will squeeze a bit more moisture. It’s like making yogurt cheese.
Either that or I’d just take the processed cauliflower and dump it all in a pan and cook the hell out of it on the stove again to evaporate the water.
Maybe tha’ll help?
This looks fantastic. I really love Chicken Pot Pie, and haven’t had it for such a long time. I am definitely going to try this!! Thanks!!
I can’t resist mentioning a recipe from Mark’s Daily Apple for shepherd’s pie:
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/shepherds-pie/
We just had this tonight for the 5th time or so and it’s incredible. Go heavy on the seasoning and you can’t go wrong.
Excellent recipe! We just made this a couple hours ago for supper. For the cauliflower “crust”, I ran it through the food processor until it was smooth and then put it over a bowl in a strainer and cheesecloth to let drain out. I let it drain for maybe 10 minutes while I was chopping up the veggies. That worked great!
I cant wait eat this again tomorrow. We had tons of leftovers, but then again I probably used 2-3x the vegetables.
Glad you likee.
Next time I might try a meat pie.
THIS IS AWESOME!!!
This is the perfect way for my family to enjoy “comfort food”. Yummy-yum-yum! =)