Pot Pies: How You Get Thick Gooey Sauce?

[NashVegas]

Tonight I'm eating my first time scratch (chicken) pot pie and taste-wise, it rocks.

BUT.

My liquid is a little watery. If anything I used less stock than the recipe called for.

Do the frozen ones you buy in the store use corn starch?

[NMDemDist2]

1. did you sprinkle flour on the layers?

cornstarch would work to I suppose

[NashVegas]

4. I Made a Roux

1/2 c flour : 1/4 c butter and added it.

[Warpy]

2. I always made a veloute sauce

with light chicken stock and added the shredded chicken and veggies to it.

I then poured the whole business into whatever I was cooking the pie in and put either biscuits or piecrust on top and into a hot oven to bake the crust.

[NashVegas]

5. Yeah, I Did That

I just wonder how the commercial interests get it near congealing.

[Warpy]

7. It should be quite thick when you pour it into

the container. It should get thicker as it cooks and water evaporates from it in the oven.

[kestrel91316]

15. Probably involves a chemical with an alphabet soup name....

[japple]

3. My mother was the queen of chicken pie makers. She always

made a regular pie crust. She used large pieces of boiled chicken and made a white sauce for the gravy. She even put light meat on one end and dark meat on the other so picky persons could choose. Then she picked out a chicken design on the top using a tooth pick. It was to die for. In later years, she started adding peas and carrots for color.

[NashVegas]

6. I Used Green Beans for Veggie

Can't believe how filling this was. Serious goodness.

[Stinky The Clown]

8. The commercial versions can be approximated with corn starch as a thickener

I am not suggesting using that unless that is the consistency you really want. For me, I prefer to make a roux based sauce based on a well cooked roux and chicken stock.

[grasswire]

9. I make a roux....

...then stir in Better Than Bouillon, some water and cook until thickened, and then add heavy cream. If you are using equal parts of flour and fat in the amount proportional to two cups of liquid, you ought to get a nice thick sauce.

I really love BTB for this.

[Warpy]

13. Me too!

It's one of the few meat products I still use. The veggie BTB isn't nearly as good.

My chicken pies are made with Quorn "naked cutlets" instead of chicken these days. I haven't found a really good veggie substitute for BTB, though, so I use it when I make the veloute.

[flamin lib]

10. I've used both corn starch and a flour roux. Wife and I both like the

roux better. I like to cook the flour at least five minutes to remove the pasty flavor. It sounds like you just missed the roux to volume mix.

[NashVegas]

12. Did I Mention

How incredibly filling this was?

[htuttle]

11. You might try adding arrowroot instead of corn starch

I discovered arrowroot while making some Thai dishes. It's an amazingly effective sauce thickener that never clumps up and has almost no taste. I've taken to using it to thicken all sorts of sauces, not just Asian ones.

[trotsky]

14. Or tapioca starch.

Also easier to use and more effective than corn starch or flour.