I grew up eating pot pies from the grocery store. They came in a metal dish in a cardboard box and you baked them in the oven. Now they come in a cardboard dish and you microwave them. But I still like to flip the pan over on a plate and lift it off, then break the bottom crust open to let the filling flow out.
This recipe gives a North African flare to the humble chicken pot pie! Moroccan spices add layers of flavor, and garbanzo beans, raisins, and olives replace the usual mixed vegetables.
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We Love Moroccan Flavors!
Morocco is a North African country, just south of Spain at the Gibraltar Strait. Moroccan cuisine is very flavorful, with lots of warm spices and contrasting flavors of salt, like green olives, and sweet, like raisins and apricots. It's a party for your tongue!
African, Middle Eastern, and Indian recipes typically have long ingredient lists because of all the spices they use. Mastering spice mixes is well worth your time! You can create any blend of flavors you want, instead of relying on off-the-shelf mixes.
Ingredients You'll Need
- chicken
- limes
- paprika
- ground cumin
- ground ginger
- salt
- black pepper
- ground cinnamon
- ground allspice
- ground nutmeg
- cayenne pepper
- butter
- onion
- sliced green olives
- golden raisins
- flour
- chicken broth
- pie crusts
Mixing It Up
We use chicken thighs here, but you can use breasts as well.
We also use lime juice, but lemon juice would work just as well.
Adjust the spice mix to your taste, you know what you like!
And of course you can make your own pie crust. I'm not very good at pastry dough, so I use store-bought. Someday I'll be brave enough to try making my own!
Make This Delicious Moroccan Chicken Pot Pie!
Here are the ingredients. There are a lot of bowls and they wouldn't all fit in one picture, so I've taken their portraits in the order in which they're use in the recipe.
First up: cubed chicken, spices, and lime juice and pulp.
Next: butter and onions...
Olives, garbanzo beans, and raisins...
Chicken stock and flour...
And finally, pie crusts.
Prepare the Chicken
Cut the limes in half. Use a small spoon to scoop our as much of the pulp and juice as you can from between the membranes. You'll want about 2 tablespoons. This is a bit of work and can get rather messy. For a quicker prep you can take the easy way out and just juice the limes.
Pour the lime juice and spices into the bowl with the chicken.
Mix well and set aside to let those flavors soak in while you make the rest of the filling.
Met the butter in a large pan over medium-high heat. This pan is from our new Misen non-stick cookware set. You'll be seeing a lot of this set in future posts!
Sauté the onions until they start to soften and turn translucent, about 4 minutes.
Add the olives, raisins, and garbanzo beans and stir for a couple of minutes. What you're doing here is building layers of flavor.
Add the chicken mixture and stir for a couple of minutes.
Sprinkle the flour over the filling and stir well to mix it in. The flour is going to make the filling thicken.
Pour the chicken stock into the pan and stir well. Bring to a boil and cook until it thickens. Stir it occasionally. It's getting thick when you drag a spoon or spatula through the pan and the liquid doesn't flow back immediately. The liquid should also coat the back of the spoon and not run right off.
While the filling is cooking down, carefully unroll one of the pie crusts and press it into the pie dish. You want it to come to the top of the dish so that it will meet with the top crust. You may need to carefully stretch the dough a bit.
Pour the thickened filling into the pie dish.
Unroll the second pie crust over the pie and press the edges of the two crusts together. Mine looks a bit "rustic". As I said above, I'm not that great with pastry dough. I'll get better, I promise!
Use a paring knife to trim away any bits that might be hanging over the edge, then cut four slits in the top of the crust. Oh, no! I poked a hole in the crust! It's looking even more rustic!
I've put the pie dish on a baking pan. If the filling should leak out, it's a lot easier to clean a baking pan than the oven!
Put the pie in the oven and bake for 20 minutes. The top crust should be golden brown, and the juices should be bubbling nicely.
I check by tapping the crust gently with my finger to make sure there are no soft places. If it's not quite done, bake for another 5 minutes and check again until it's good.
Here's the pie right out of the oven... golden brown, bubbling, and still rustic!
Pot pies are usually not going to slice into clean wedges like other pies because the filling is more liquid, so the best way to serve it is with a spoon.
This pie was delicious, and we had to stop ourselves from eating it all at once!
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📖 Recipe Card
Moroccan-Spiced Chicken Pot Pie
Special Equipment Needed
- 1 9-inch deep-dish glass pie dish
Ingredients
- 1 ½ pounds chicken thighs skinless and boneless, cut into 1-inch cubes
- 2 small limes
- 1 teaspoon paprika
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
- ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon ground allspice
- ⅛ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ⅛ teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 3 tablespoons butter
- 1 large onion cut into ½-inch cubes
- 1 (15-ounce) can garbanzo beans
- 2 (2.5-ounce )cans sliced green olives
- ⅓ cup golden raisins
- 2 tablespoons all purpose flour
- 1 cup chicken broth
- 2 refrigerated pie crusts
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 425°F.
- Cut the limes in half and remove the seeds. Use a small spoon to scoop the pulp and juice from between the membranes.2 small limes
- Mix the chicken cubes with the salt, black pepper, paprika, cumin, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, and cayenne pepper, and lime juice in a large bowl.1 ½ pounds chicken thighs, 1 teaspoon paprika, 1 teaspoon ground cumin, 1 teaspoon ground ginger, ½ teaspoon salt, ¼ teaspoon black pepper, ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon, ¼ teaspoon ground allspice, ⅛ teaspoon ground nutmeg, ⅛ teaspoon cayenne pepper
- Melt the butter in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onion and sauté for about 4 minutes until the onions starts to soften.3 tablespoons butter, 1 large onion
- Add the olives, raisins, and garbanzo beans to the skillet and stir for a couple of minutes to let the flavors combine.1 (15-ounce) can garbanzo beans, 2 (2.5-ounce )cans sliced green olives, ⅓ cup golden raisins
- Add the chicken mixture to the pan and stir for a couple of minutes.
- Sprinkle the flour over the mixture and stir for about 1 minute. The flour will help thicken the filling.2 tablespoons all purpose flour
- Add the broth and bring the filling to a boil, stirring occasionally, until it thickens.1 cup chicken broth
- Press the first pie crust into the pie dish and pour the filling into the dish. Put the second crust over the top of the dish and seal the dough to the edge of the dish. Use a paring knife to trim any extra dough, and then cut several slits in the crust.2 refrigerated pie crusts
- Bake for about 20 minutes until the crust is golden brown and the juices are bubbling.
Nutrition Estimate
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mb says
I started with some leftover pastry dough and what I could find in the freezer: cooked turkey, chickpeas, chicken stock; and what I could find in my pantry: raisins, spices, onions, olives. I sauteed the onions first then added the spices and the rest, flour for thickening, then the broth. Rolled out the crust, threw it all together and baked. It was fantastic! I did rate it five even though I used cooked turkey not raw chicken, but the rest was the same. I think the seasonings and additions are what makes it special.
Grey says
Hi, thanks for checking out the site! No worries, turkey is a great substitute for chicken so I would call this "unmodified", LOL. I've found chicken pot pie to be wonderfully flexible, and I've got ideas for a few more international versions!
Best regards,
~~ Grey