1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breast halves – cubed
1 cup sliced carrots
1 cup frozen green peas
1/2 cup sliced celery
GRAVY: (One to one and a half times this)
1/3 cup butter
1/3 cup chopped onion
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon celery salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 tsp thyme
¾ tsp garlic powder
½ tsp salt
1 3/4 cups chicken broth (or more)
2/3 cup milk
2 (9 inch) unbaked pie crusts
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C.)
In a saucepan, combine chicken, carrots, peas, and celery. Add water (I added chicken broth instead) to cover and boil for 15 minutes. Remove from heat, drain, saving cooking water and set aside.
In the saucepan over medium heat, cook onions in butter until soft and translucent. Stir in flour, celery salt, pepper, thyme, garlic powder and salt. Slowly stir in chicken broth (from cooking the chicken) and milk. Simmer over medium-low heat until thick. Remove from heat and set aside.
Place the chicken mixture in bottom pie crust. Pour hot liquid mixture over. Cover with top crust, seal edges, and cut away excess dough. Make several small slits in the top to allow steam to escape.
Bake in the preheated oven for 30 to 35 minutes, or until pastry is golden brown and filling is bubbly. Cool for 10 minutes before serving.
Crust: (double crust)
2 1/2 C flour
1 1/2 Sticks cold butter, cut into 1/2 in cubes
1/4 C cold vegetable shortening
1/2 tsp salt
4-6 Tbsp ice water
Blend together flour, butter, shortening and salt in a bowl with your fingertips or a pastry blender (or pulse in food processor) just until mixture resembles course meal with some small (pea sized) lumps of butter. Drizzle 4 tbsp ice water evenly over mixture and gently stir with a fork (or pulse) until incorporated.
Squeeze a small handful of dough: it if doesn’t hold together, add more ice water 1/2 Tbsp at a time, stirring (or pulsing) until incorporated. Do not overwork dough or pastry will be tough.
Turn dough out onto a work surface. Divide dough into 8 portions. With the heel of your hand, smear each portion once or twice in a forward motion to help distribute fat. Gather all dough together, with a pastry scraper if you have one. Divide dough in half, form into a ball and flatten each into a 5 inch disk. If sticky, lightly dust with flour. Wrap each disk in plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm, at least 1 hour.