Chicken and prune pie

with watercress salad? John said "nah"

Last Wednesday night’s dinner was an extremely delicious chicken, prune and celeriac pie. It’s already Monday and I’m still not over it!!

Last week John and I went to a Hot Girl Restaurant in the West Village called King, not to be confused with Burger King. It’s just King.

Sometimes these types of restaurants, with their design-y aesthetic in their expensive neighborhoods are mostly Instagram bait for, welp, my demographic I guess, and the food almost always turns out to be pricey and vapid.

I wrongly thought King was one of those places. But turns out King is extremely delicious and focused on a kind of food I love - simple, kinda British, kinda French, kinda Shaker? (went down a weird rabbit hole reading about this). One of the things we ate was a duck and prune pie, and we really loved it.

Meat pies are beautiful and intimidating to me, and every time we get to that episode of GBBO, I feel newly inspired to make one myself. I still haven’t done it properly though, because I chickened (lol!) out, and this was more of… an open-faced pop tart? Actually, I just remembered there’s a name for this and it’s called a galette. Theoretically.

The prunes I bought from Kalustyan’s were heavenly soft and delicious, an extremely annoying quality, considering eating even one is like launching a grenade into your intestines. When I used to work in a test kitchen I kept dried apricots as a snack on hand at all times, and every time my boss Jennifer saw me eating them she’d look at me with a raised eyebrow and the wisdom of a learned woman and say “caaaareful” in an eerily knowing tone. Anyway, prunes get an especially bad rap for these same reasons, but they add an intriguing sweetness when stewed in things. But idk, let’s just say I wouldn’t recommend eating this at the office.

These pies open-faced pop tarts galettes were actually pretty easy to pull together. I started by cooking some bs (boneless skinless) chicken thighs - I didn’t wait for the pan to get hot, and I didn’t add oil to the pan since chicken thighs are naturally fatty. I just threw them in, seasoned them with salt and pepper, the pan slowly filled with water and chicken juices, then the water evaporated, the fat was left, and the thighs browned in their own fat. Magic.

During this time I chopped some leeks, celery, and celeriac. Celery party! I always forget about celeriac, and every time I eat it at a restaurant (including at King) I think “damn we’re all sleeping on celeriac” because we are! It’s like a not very starchy potato (horrible description) with a light celery flavor and I swear it’s good. And cheap!

I transferred the chicken to a plate, sautéed the veg in the chicken fat, added some chopped fresh rosemary and sage, deglazed with madeira (¯\_(ツ)_/¯), added the prunes (which I had chopped), and a little bit of water. I returned the chicken to the skillet, covered it tightly, and let it all simmer for about 20 minutes - in that time, the chicken got tender, the celeriac softened, and the prunes swelled up into into Plums: Back from the Dead. I added a knob of butter, a touch of cream, and killed the heat. I stirred it a bit and broke up the chicken into smaller pieces with my spoon.

I let this mixture cool so it wouldn’t immediately melt the puff pastry. Here’s the pretentious thing I have to say about puff pastry: there’s only one brand you should be buying at the store if you’re not making it yourself (I’ve never made it myself) - Dufour. Once you taste how good Dufour is, you’ll realize Pepperidge farm is actually extremely bad. This is unfortunate, because Pepperidge farm is everywhere, and I can only reliably find Dufour at Whole Foods. It’s also a bit more expensive. Which I guess is what you have to pay for real butter! No joke, Pepperidge farm brand is actually vegan because they don’t use real butter. I’m definitely not saying vegan puff pastry is inherently bad. Just that Pepperidge farm is. It crumbles apart and has no real heft to it, no flavor, and leaves a strange film in your mouth. Okay rant over.

I had intended to make one big galette from the entire sheet of puff (that’s an industry term for puff pastry), but I was impatient and tried to pry it open before it was defrosted enough to be pliable. Classic Laura amirite.

But I guess it all worked out for the best, because it split into 4 perfect quarters and I was inspired to make “individual” galettes. I did the thing where I folded the edges, brushed them with egg, sprinkly salt, sprinkly pepper, but it unfurled in the oven in a gradual yet unstoppable way that elicited frustration which eventually gave way to acceptance. What happens in the oven, stays in the oven. I don’t really know what I’m talking about anymore.

I had some watercress in the fridge that I considered tossing with a vinaigrette, but John, whose opinions on cooking I’ve always held in high esteem, suggested we skip the salad and just focus on the brown stuff.

The finished galette turned out to be one of the Great Things I’ve Made, and we were chewing and smiling like idiots for most of dinner. I think we’ve run out of things to say to each other by now, so if we even talked about anything, it wasn’t interesting enough to warrant remembering 5 days later.