Last night, we decided to use up some of the leftover chicken from Pollo en Salsa in chicken pot pie. I did not search the cookbook for a chicken pot pie recipe, but just threw things together. I did, however, use one of the recipes for pie crust. Now, I have never been any good at pastry. It doesn't do what it is supposed to do, and it sticks to everything when I go to roll it out.
I carefully followed the recipe. 2 1/4 cups of flour, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 3/4 cup shortening, and 2 tablespoons of heavy cream. I used a pastry cutter to cut the shortening into the flour until it resembled coarse oatmeal. I wonder what young people make of these instructions. Coarse oatmeal. What is that? Then it says, "stir in the cream and enough water to make a dough." Well, this is unspecific. The idea is to just add the water a teaspoonful at a time and not let it get too soggy. I always dump in more water than I should and end up with a gluey mass. I tried to add just a tiny bit, and stir, having a small coagulation in the midst of all the coarse oatmeal. A little more and a little more, and finally the dough stuck together without being too mucky.
Now, here, I do believe is the key. Because I was sick on Monday, I made the dough around 2:00 and stuck it in the refrigerator.
Normally, I never have time to chill the pastry. But, when I took it out at 7:30 it held together and did not stick to the aluminum foil. So, make your pastry ahead of time.
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