Dutch Oven Chicken and Biscuit Pot Pie
Shelf-stable pot pie built on canned chicken and powdered milk, with a drop-biscuit lid baked over coals.
- calories
- 620
- weight
- 7 oz
- cal / oz
- 89
- protein
- 26 g
- serves
- 6, scales
- prep
- 15 min
- cook
- 30 min
- total time
- 45 min
- water
- 700 ml boiled
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Dutch oven
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| Shortening | 1/2 cup total | 1/4 cup for the gravy, 1/4 cup cut into the biscuit mix; stable without a cooler |
|---|---|---|
| All-purpose flour | 1/4 cup | for the gravy roux |
| Canned or pouched chicken | 3 cups, about 4 cans | drained |
| Dried onion, celery, and carrot | 1 cup combined | |
| Freeze-dried peas | 1 1/2 cups | |
| Dried mushrooms | 1 cup | sliced, not whole caps |
| Bouillon | 2 cubes or 2 tsp | makes 1 1/2 cups broth |
| Whole milk powder | 1/3 cup | stands in for the half-and-half |
| Salt and pepper | to taste | |
| All-purpose flour | 2 cups | for the biscuits |
| Baking powder | 1 tbsp | |
| Salt | 1/2 tsp | for the biscuit mix |
Method
- Start 25 coals or burn a fire down to a solid bed. You want heat you can split between the lid and the bottom.
- Pour 3 cups of water into the Dutch oven and bring it to a boil over the coals. Add the dried onion, celery, carrot, mushrooms, and peas. Let them sit off heat 10 minutes to rehydrate, then drain the liquid into a cup and keep it.
- Return the pot to low heat. Melt 1/4 cup shortening, stir in 1/4 cup flour, and cook it a minute so it stops smelling like raw flour.
- Whisk in the reserved soaking liquid plus enough water to make 1 1/2 cups, with the bouillon dissolved in it. Add 1 cup water whisked with the milk powder. Stir until it thickens.
- Fold in the chicken and vegetables. Salt and pepper it. Pull the pot off the coals.
- Mix the biscuit flour, baking powder, and salt in a bag. Cut in the remaining shortening with a spoon or your fingers until it looks like gravel, then add about 3/4 cup water and stir just until it holds together.
- Drop the dough in six lumps over the filling. Lid on. Put roughly 17 coals on the lid and 8 underneath.
- Bake 25 to 30 minutes. The biscuits are done when the tops are dry and a stick comes out of one clean. Check at 20 minutes and rotate the pot and lid a quarter turn each.
The original is a home kitchen dish: butter, fresh mushrooms, half-and-half, whole milk. None of that rides in a car for three days without a cooler. Shortening replaces the butter and the chilled fat in the biscuits, whole milk powder replaces both dairies, and dried vegetables replace the fresh dice. The flavor is a little flatter than the real thing, which is what the bouillon and the mushroom soaking liquid are there to fix. Do not throw that liquid out.
The roux is the part worth doing carefully. Flour cooked in fat before the liquid goes in gives a gravy that holds the filling together under a wet biscuit lid; skip it and the biscuits sink into soup. Heat placement matters too, roughly two thirds of the coals on top, because biscuits brown from above and the bottom is already hot from the gravy. Rotate once so the seam in your coal bed does not scorch one side.
Packing
Biscuit flour, baking powder, and salt premixed in one bag at home. Dried vegetables and mushrooms in a second, bouillon and milk powder in a third. Shortening in a screw-top tub. Chicken cans ride wherever there is room.
Variations
- Swap the biscuit lid for a pouch of just-add-water biscuit mix if you would rather not carry shortening for two jobs.
- A tablespoon of poultry seasoning or dried thyme in the gravy covers for the missing fresh aromatics.
https://www.lodgecastiron.com/blogs/recipe/new-england-chicken-pot-pie-with-biscuit-crust