Hello friends and pie eaters!!! Welcome to Pieathalon 7 – that very special time of year when bloggers from all over the world get together and celebrate the weird and wonderful world of vintage pies. And oh boy did it get weird this year! Surly over from at Vintage Recipe Cards sent me a hybrid concoction which much like my detested chocolate cheesecake takes two things that separately are wonderful and combines them into a Franken-monster Chicken Salad Pie!
Are you ready, are you ready for this? Are you hanging on the edge of your seat?
Glorious is it not?
Before we even get to the eating of it, let me tell you that Chicken Salad Pie was an absolute BASTARD of a thing to make! Even before that though, let’s start with possibly the only positive to come out of this which is the perfect late ’60’s styling of the original recipe! Perfection! I want that leaf plate so, so much. And those gold glasses!
So, you’ll notice that my pies are a lot more round that those in the recipe. Let me tell you why.
Chicken Salad Pie: Hours 1-3
I finished work at around 6 and started cooking. Given that I now mostly work from the dining table, I probably started making the Chicken Salad Pie at around…6:01. Put the chicken on to poach. Start cutting the pastry into the right size of rounds. Oh, yeah, did I mention I was doing this on the Tuesday night before we posted today?
6:30: Everything on track. The chicken was poached and was cooling. The pastry had been blind-baked and was also cooling.
6:45 The broth, salad dressing, onion, lemon juice and salt were in the bowl waiting for the pimentos. Oh. That’s right. We don’t have pimentos here. So, in order to get pimentos, I bought a jar of stuffed olives and picked them out of the olives using a kitchen skewer.
How long does it take to pick out a peck of pickled pimentos?
Too damn long.
Especially if you eat half the olives you are meant to be picking.
7:15: Pimentos were picked. Gelatine was added. Mixture was beaten and left to chill.
8:15: Has the mixture thickened? I don’t think it’s thickened. Better give it another half hour.
8:45: The mixture has definitely not thickened.
8:50: Research what do to if gelatine does not set.
Chicken Salad Pie: Hours 3-6
9:00. Tip the mixture into a saucepan and heat it. Add more gelatin.
9:20: Place mixture back into the fridge. Wonder why you chose this week of all weeks to be alcohol-free.
9:45: Mixture shows no sign of thickening. But it was warm so it will probably take longer right?
10:15 Still not thickening. Realise you have not had dinner. Eat some olives.
10:45 It’s like water. Pour runny gelatine back into the saucepan.
11:15 Add more gelatine to the rewarmed mixture. Have a glass of wine. This is not the week to quit drinking.
11:30 Put the mixture back into the fridge. Curse the non-specificity of vintage recipes. How much gelatine was in an envelope of gelatine in 1968? And how does that translate to spoonfuls which is how I am measuring mine. Wonder why you leave everything to the last minute. Vow to change. Eat more olives.
Midnight: The mixture is thickening!!!! REEEEE-SULT! Add the chicken and celery
12:15: Still thickening but still too runny to pour into the pie shells. Because as they keep telling you on The Great British Bake-off, no one likes a soggy bottom! Decide to pour the mixture into teacups, allow it to set inside them and turn them out the following day….later that same day.
CHICKEN SALAD PIE – THE VERDICT
Cutting into the chicken salad pie was reminiscent of cutting into that jellied loaf style of dog food which was a real hurdle to overcome when tasting it. I did have a tiny bit and it wasn’t….awful. It tasted and smelled mostly of the dressing. But the association with dogfood was enough to prevent me from eating any more.
So in summary, no sleep, no dinner and a pie that looked like Pedigree Chum. It was certainly no winner, winner chicken dinner. I can’t even feed it to the dogs, who would love it due to the onions! This one, sadly, is going straight into the trash.
Pieathalon 7
Thanks as ever to Yinzerella for organising Pieathalon 7! You’re the best!
Thanks / Curses to Surly for the recipe. It was very fun to make despite it taking forever and being the closest thing to dogfood I have ever eaten.
I really hope Wendy from A Day In The Life on The Farm fared better with my recipe for Cherry Blossom Pie!
To see how Wendy went and to check out all the other pies, please click on the links below. If they are not all up at the time of posting, I will update during the course of the day.
Okay friends, stay safe and most importantly…eat pie!
