Chicken Pot Pie With Cheese Straw Crust

Today, I think that you and I are going to do kind of new twist to old southern traditional recipes

Yes, ma'am. Well, I'm going to make my favorite chicken pot pie in the whole world, y'all

This is the epitome of an old country. Chicken pot pie, the only thing is, Kimberly, I don't put no feet in mine

That's good. Now, if it was really, really country, it would have the feet, wouldn't it

Yeah, let's leave it. So, listen, would you do me a favor? Yeah

If you would just, like, quarter that and chunk that and chunk that

It doesn't have to be pretty. Okay, good. And I'm just going to split our chicken

You know, I think that'll just help it cook a little bit faster. Yeah

But I kind of like to leave my chicken as big as I can

Yeah? Because it seems to stay on the bone a little bit better

but I do want what those bones have to offer us, and that's flavor

Flavor. So I'm just going to cover this with water, and you can just throw the things in

Of all things, I can't believe I'm cooking chicken pot pie with Paula Deen

Holy cow. Kimberly, can you throw a bay leaf in that pot, please, darling

So I'm going to just put this back here. All righty. How long are you going to cook that for, Miss Paula

About 45 minutes. And if you would grab that salt and pepper

Yes, ma'am. I'm going to come down here and wash my hands. So, Kimberly, being a southern girl, I know you've made cheese straws before

Yeah, since I was this big. Oh, my gosh. Well, then you make them. No, no, no

I'm making them. You make them a lot. You tell me. I've got you a stick of butter

Okay. At room temperature. I'll finish grating this cheese. All righty. And we're going to need two cups of grated sharp cheese, y'all

A cheese straw in the south is like, it's a staple. It is

You know, if you go to a party, if you go to a wedding. If you go to a shower

There is going to be cheese straws. We'll cream that. Get some of that cheese off of there

Yeah, there you go. Sling it out. It'll get soft in a second. I'm going to add a teaspoon of salt

Yep. And I'm going to add a fourth of a teaspoon of cayenne pepper

Oh, I love her. Because we know that our cheese straws have to have a little bit of bite, don't they

So y'all stay on the road a lot. Yeah, we're on the road a whole lot

We probably did a little over a hundred shows this year And you married I married yes And you got a precious little 5 girl Daisy Does she look like her Daisy Oh my gosh

Does she look like her mama? She does. Kimberly, I'm gonna add a cup and a half of our flour

And we'll just finish mixing this up. Our dough looks very, very good

This is gonna be our top crust for our chicken pot pie. So good. But I'm also going to make you the old-timey crust like I make. Okay

I'm going to need three cups of all-purpose flour. Okay. So I'm going to put a teaspoon of salt in with that flour, and we will fluff that up

A fourth of a teaspoon of baking powder. So we're not putting a lot of leavening in it

Because this is for the bottom? I'm going to put this throughout the pie

Oh, wow. And we are, yes. And we're going to use three quarters of a cup of solid shortening

You want me to keep mashing? Yeah, keep mashing until this kind of looks like a cornmeal

Okay. And I'm slowly going to add ice water. And it's important, y'all, that water be good and cold

Remember, you can always add two, but you can't take out. That's right

So, see, it's starting to come together. Yeah, my mama made biscuits every day

she made biscuits, and I would just stand by and watch her, and she would let me add milk

you know, like you're adding the water. Uh-huh, uh-huh. This girl can cook. See the way she just jumped right in there? I think that's good. Yeah

I mean, it's nice and sticky, so what we're gonna need to do now

is unstick that by just kneading it in that flour. This dough is kind of tough

and that's what we want. Yeah. We want a tough dough. tough as you and me, sister

We have some tough lemon, right? That's right. So you're going to put

that all the way through the pie, not just on the bottom. I can't wait for this

I'm telling you. And you're going to pull that broth over it, and

the flour from our dough is going to make that broth thicken

That's good. That's how my mama makes dumplings. Yes, exactly. And you see, I divided

our dough because it's just easier to manhandle. So this is going to take me

a couple of minutes. I'm going to just pull our chicken out of here. I'm going to try to

manhandle him. Oh, yeah, he's looking mighty fine. Oh, I still got another piece of chicken in there

I said that thing was big. I don know what I was thinking I know a chicken got two legs Alright so yeah flour that up good You know how to do that Kimberly rolling out our cheese straw dough

This is a good, good, rich broth. Mm. Now I'm going to show you a little trick

that I used to reaching up my broth, and that's just adding a little stick of butter to it

And I'm going to taste this, Kimberly. Mm-mm. And make sure we got it salty enough

Oh, my gosh, it looks good. And those little thyme leaves, you know

Ooh, yummy. Does it taste good? It tastes delicious. I'm getting excited

How thin should I go here? All right, let's see. Is that good or thinner? Let's put a little bit more flour

There we go. All right, let's see. Do you mind if I touch it a little bit

Please. Because what we've got to think about is how long our strips are going to be. Okay

Because, see, there's our pan. Oh, yeah, okay. And there's our dough, so I think that's going to work good

Perfect. Now, all I put in my chicken pot pie in the way of veggies is peas and carrots

Okay. So I'm just using the frozen peas, which are basically already cooked, and I had pre-cooked some fresh carrots

All right. So we're going to take our dish. You making strips

I'm making strips, honey. And I always start by putting just a little dough in the bottom of our pan

Layer it up, huh? Yeah, if you do the peas, I'll be the carrot

All righty. Just a little bit for color. And now it's time to put our chicken

Okay. And this may be the tedious part. Picking chicken. Because we got a hot chick on our hands

Oh, you sure do. That thing's still steaming. Grab us a couple of forks out of that drawer, Kimberly

And a couple of knives. And we'll just help this sucker along

Being cooks, you get tough hands, don't you? You get tough fingers, yes

When I was a little kid, my grandmother had the toughest. She could just have scalded water on them

And now I understand. I know. You just want it shredded up

Yeah, I kind of just do it kind of just like that. Okay, chunky. Yeah, just chunky

I can't believe I'm picking chicken with Paula Deen. Woo! I could die and go to heaven

No, baby, uh-uh. You mean too much. No, ma'am. I believe we have, um..

Uh-uh, don't tell me. We haven't picked the chicken. Is there any more chicken here

I'm sure I can find a piece of meat. No girl you done good Have I You listen to Mama good Oh yeah Now all we going to do at this point is just take our chicken keep doing the same thing

I have never had a chicken pie that's all layered up with crust

Really? No. Well, you know, to me, it's just not the same

if you don't have that wonderful pastry through it. It's going to be mighty fine

Here we go. Now our cheese straw dough. It's going to be pretty

This is a little bit more fragile than regular dough. Yeah. Yum

All right, now let me tell you what we're going to do now. I'm going to bring this pot up here

That broth. Yes. And all we're going to do is just cover our pie

Wow. With that rich broth. Mmm. That broth tastes so good. And I bring that broth because, you know, we got that pastry down in there

So it's going to soak up our juice. Soak it right up. Yes. So we're going to bring that broth all the way to the tippy top

Wow. And then I got one more little surprise for it. And more

More something else? Yeah. Now I'm just going to dot. Oh, yeah

this with just a little bit of butter. See, not a whole bunch

No, just a little. Just a little. A little of. I want to

just because I think it'd be pretty. With the cheese, I want to just

a little pepper. Okay, and the devil made me do that one

That devil. He keeps coming back around. We're going to put this in the oven

350, and we're going to bake it probably for about 45 minutes. This is

like gold, y'all. If we don't need this anymore, we will freeze it for the next pie

Alright, come on in, dumpling. And I mean that in the truest sense of the word

I think we did it. Woo! It's gorgeous. Y'all look at this pot pie

And what I smell is the cheese. Me too. It smells like you're cooking cheese straws in here. It does

It smells just like we have baked some cheese straws. Look at that

It looks like dumplings in there. Uh-huh. Going in. Mm. Mm. Oh, wow

That's right fitting. Cheese straw. Yay