The question: is a pot pie is a pie has been hotly debated for centuries. Some people say that it’s not because it contains meat, while others argue that the crust alone makes it.
So is pot pie a pie? A pot pie is a pie. This is because it is an enclosed baked pastry with a savory filling of meat, fish, vegetables, or fruit. The pie was originally a way to cook ingredients in the ancient world by enclosing them within a circle of pastry dough and baking them on hot stones.
Why Is A Pot Pie A Pie?
Many cultures have a dish that is the ancestor of the pot pie. In medieval cuisine, they consumed chicken, rabbit, pigeon, and other game birds. The medieval pie was derived from the ancient Romans, which had traces of pastry on the bottom and the top but no container of any kind.
It is believed that when Romans traveled north to what we now call France, they brought their techniques for making stuffed pasta (similar to ravioli) and pot pies (pasta da truppa) with them.
A pastry-based dish enclosing a filling of vegetables and stock is recorded in England as early as the fourteenth century. The wealthy likely enjoyed their pastry cases filled with meat or fish. The first known recipe for what we would recognize today as a pot pie dates from the sixteenth century. The chicken “pastie” was described in Harleian MS 4016, c. 1680:
What Is A Pot Pie?
A pot pie refers to any of several meat pies with a crust or topping of pastry. It derives from medieval dishes consisting of cooked ingredients packed into an edible container and baked, where the pot referred to both the container and its contents. Today, it can refer to both commercially prepared products and those prepared in an individual’s kitchen. The commercial pot pies available at grocery stores and supermarkets across the United States can contain beef, chicken, buffalo, vegetables, and even cheese. They can come with a crust, either pre-baked or raw. If raw, the filling is placed in a baking dish, and the pastry crust draped over it before going into the oven. The pot pie derives from medieval dishes consisting of cooked ingredients packed into an edible container and baked.
Forms Of Pot Pies:
There are a few different types of pot pies that range from appetizers to full meals. Some examples include:
Buffalo Chicken Pot Pie:
a chicken pot pie with a buffalo flavor. This is usually prepared with hot sauce, blue cheese dressing, and celery for serving.
Chicken Pot Pie:
It’s a classic dish consisting of a thick stew-like filling inside a homemade crust or store-bought ready-to-heat pastry shell. The pie filling usually consists of chicken, diced potatoes, carrots, and celery. The classic dish usually has a top layer of pastry with holes to allow steam to release.
Shepherd’s Pie:
It is a meat pie consisting of ground lamb or beef cooked together with onion/garlic, peas, carrots, and other vegetables. Topped with mashed potatoes, baked until the top layer of potato is browned.
Turkey Pot Pie:
It consists of a thick, creamy sauce filled with chunks of turkey meat and vegetables. The dish has a bottom pie crust filled with the ingredients such as corn, carrots, and peas. This is topped off with a second crust and then baked.
Individual Pot Pies:
prepared in individual servings (i.e., ramekins) and can contain various ingredients such as vegetables, meat, or fruit filling. Typically cooked with a top and bottom crust on the dish.
How Is A Pot Pie Different From Other Pies?
It is good to set out guidelines about what makes a pot pie different from other pies, if only so that the world can be sure of your culinary specificity.
The pastry is not meant to be eaten. It is merely a vessel in which to assemble ingredients so that they may be cooked with steam. Steam acts as both heat transfer medium and leavening agent. The purpose of this vessel is for cooking due to its inherent insulative properties, or more simply put: it traps in steam to cook.
A pot pie filling is typically meat with some vegetables (for example, chicken and carrots) mixed together in sauce (thickened juices). A pot pie can also be filled with seafood or tofu, but most pot pies are filled with poultry. The filling is always cooked on the stove (usually after baking) and then baked with pastry on top. The only difference between a pot pie and a croquette is that croquettes are served as appetizers or snacks rather than as entrees.
Pot pies are typically baked in ceramic ramekins of the same size (e.g., 4-ounce ramekins).
It is possible to eat the pastry, but this would defeat the purpose of a pot pie. It is also possible to use larger ceramic or glass dishes. One would need to adjust baking time and temperature (higher temperatures and shorter times at higher altitudes; lower temperatures and longer times in larger vessels at lower altitudes).
