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I have been thinking about making chicken pot pie for years now.

It began when my brother bought me the Marshall Field’s Cookbook shortly after (may it rest in peace) its untimely demise at the hands of Macy’s, something that Chicago will collectively never forgive Macy’s for. The cover recipe of the book is, of course, the dish that started it all: the Marshall Field’s chicken pot pie that was first served to two well-off Fields customers by an extremely accomadating saleswoman.

I’ve worked in retail, and hell would have frozen over before I gave any customer at Sears my lunch. But I digress.

Pot pie is somehow something I’ve never gotten around to. The Fields version involves fussy chicken preparation and individual ramekins and really, at heart, I’m lazy. Extremely lazy. As it is, pot pie is strictly a weekend meal, and my version isn’t even that difficult.

My version is cobbled together from various versions floating around the internet with some inspiration drawn from Nick Malgieri’s recipe in The Modern Baker. It has a biscuit top, loads of tender dark meat chicken, onion, mushrooms, carrots and peas. It’s time-consuming – probably 6 hours in total – but easy as (wait for it) pie.
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My mother’s reaction to what I was making for dinner was the skeptical “…onion soup?” that a lot of my food experiments get. Not sure why, as onion soup (particularly the French variety) is a standby in every Applebees and TGI Friday’s across the country. I think she’d be pleasantly surprised by this one, as it’s reminiscent of potato soup except, you know, without the potatoes.

It’s based mostly on Kayotic’s recipe with a couple of modifications: I only used two onions because one of my Spanish onions was approximately the size of my cat’s head, dill rather than thyme because dill is the best thing ever, and a shot of light cream towards the end, because that’s never a bad thing. Top with crumbled herbed goat cheese and you’ve got a pretty awesome dinner.

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