Smoked Salmon Pot Pie

Due to me not having a functional camera handy at the moment, you're just going to have to pretend there's a photo of a tasty pot pie in a large casserole dish here. =)

This dish was inspired by a trip to the Farmer's market. Seeing all of the delicious mushrooms and tasting way too many varieties of smoked salmon made me want to combine them. Then I smelled the oh so sweet aroma of a pot pie from another booth, and...viola I wanted a salmon pot pie. Having never made a pot pie before, I figured it couldn't be THAT difficult and with a little help from the internetz I found several recipes online and modified them together based on what I had handy (and what I wanted in my dish).

Crust Ingredients
1.5 cups flour
1 stick butter - cubed and cold (or it sticks like whoa!)
2 dashes salt
1/4 cup ice water

Mix the flour and butter together until there's no large butter chunks in, it'll get kind of mealy. Then add in your water and kneed that in until you can form it into a ball. At this stage it's going to be real sticky, so if you're like my you can toss in a little more flour to make it manageable and then form it into a ball and cover it in saran wrap and set it aside for 15-20 minutes. Or however long the rest of this process takes you.


Filling ingredients
3 tbls oil (or 2 tbls butter)
2 tbls flour
1- 10 oz package of frozen veggies (thawed) or 2 cups chopped veggies (your choice)
1/2 cup carrots
1.5 cups chopped broccoli
1 cup chopped chanterelle mushrooms
1 small sweet onion - chopped
3 cloves garlic
1 small shallot - chopped
1/2 tsp ground sage
2 tsps italian seasonings (it called for thyme...this is what I had)
1 sweet potato - peeled and chopped (I cooked mine for 5 minutes in microwave to speed things up because i didn't roast it earlier)
1/2 pound fresh salmon (still raw, but deskinned and chopped in 1 inch cubes)
2 cups broth (I used chicken broth, it was handy but I imagine you could use veggie, seafood, etc just as easily)
1.5 cups milk (i substituted 1/2 cup half n half and 1 cup nonfat...would have used all cream if I had it)
1/2ish pound of smoked salmon

***Preheat the oven to 400 F.***

1. In a large Saute Pan heat the oil until it's hot and then add the flour, stirring until there are no lumps and you have a nice roux going.
2. Add the onions, garlic, shallot, and veggies. Saute those until the veggies are soft, approx 5-10 minutes.
3. Stir in the seasonings and broth, it may thicken up some which is good. Let cook another 5 minutes or so then...
4.Add both types of salmon to the mixture and stir well to distribute the fish evenly, cook for another 5 minutes or so and then kill the heat. Stir in the milk.
5. Roll out your pie dough into a circle large enough to cover your 2 quart casserole dish.
6. Fill your casserole dish with the potpie mixture and then top with your pie dough, the dough should extend over the edges by about 1/2 - 1 inch. Poke some holes in whatever fancy design floats your boat (I made a flower...)
7. Cook in the oven for approx 15-10 minutes until crust is golden.

Tada!

Now, when I had this last night it seemed awfully soupy but I've been finding less and less liquid in my casserole dish. It appears to be soaking into the veggies just fine and giving it that pot pie texture I was hoping for. Next time I make it I think I'll use more cream, less milk and possibly add some flour to thicken it up a bit before baking.

The dish was inspired and assisted with bits and pieces of the below recipes
http://www.potpierecipe.net/
http://www.toomanychefs.com/archives/001306.php