Growing up in Winston-Salem, NC, the heart of Moravian culture in the South, I ate a lot of Moravian chicken pies. My paternal grandmother cooked them to feed her extended family, as an offering to church fundraisers, and as meals for families with new babies and newly departed loved ones. When my grandfather died in the 1990s, a swarm of church ladies fed chicken pie to every funeral attendee gathered in the basement. I remember thinking then: What an incredible gift, to bake from scratch hundreds of pies and serve them to people you didn’t know as an act of comfort and to keep alive a tradition that stretches back hundreds of years.
The Moravian religion landed in North America in the 1700s: Germanic Protestants who favored order, community and efficiency. What sets Moravian chicken pie apart from more common pot pies is its simplicity — crust, meat, gravy. Never vegetables. It’s an embodiment of the Moravian value of thrift, a meal made from laying hens who no longer produced. The whole hen was boiled in a pot. The liquid became the broth. The meat filled the pie.
My embrace of this recipe came later than it might have. Eating local was what brought me around. These days I regularly purchase whole chickens from local farmers and roast them. The leftovers (all the bits pulled off the bones after the first meal of sliced breast has been served) become chicken pie. In a departure from tradition, I add alliums and herbs for flavor (and because I grow them in my garden).
- Recipe by Christina Nifong, Roanoke
Ingredients
Makes 6-8 servings
Dough for 1 double pie crust
2 tablespoons butter
1/3 cup chopped onion
3-4 cloves garlic
1/3 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon dried sage
1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary
1 3/4 cups chicken broth
1/2 cup milk
3 cups shredded or diced cooked chicken
INSTRUCTIONS
Heat oven to 425°. Make pie crust dough according to your favorite recipe. Roll out bottom crust and place in pie plate. Set aside. In large saucepan or Dutch oven, melt butter over medium heat. Add onion and garlic; cook, stirring frequently, until tender. Stir in flour, salt, pepper and herbs until well blended. Gradually stir in broth and milk, cooking and stirring until bubbly and thick. Stir in chicken. Remove from heat. Spoon into crust-lined pie plate.
Roll out top crust. Place dough over filling. Trim, seal and crimp crust edges. Carefully cut out pieces of top crust to provide holes for venting. Bake 30 to 40 minutes or until the crust is golden brown. During the last 15 to 20 minutes of baking, cover edge of crust with strips of foil to prevent excessive browning. Let stand 5 minutes before serving.
