French Fridays with Dorie: Chicken B’stilla

Leave it to me to pick one of the more involved recipes for my first French Fridays with Dorie post, and then decide to do it all in one evening. In the end, it was a lovely dinner of Moroccan-style chicken pie.

Read on for the process from start to finish, with photos and lessons learned.

A bit of background: French Fridays with Dorie is an online cooking group, with the goal of cooking through Dorie Greenspan’s Around My French Table. Considering they started last October, I’m a late addition.

Thankfully, the book is quite substantial, so there will be plenty of French Fridays in the weeks to come. I resolve to participate at least two times a month, if not every week.

As per the rules, there will be no recipe provided, which is all the more reason to buy the book (and perhaps join the group?). In fact, I recommend all of Dorie Greenspan’s books; she shares a wealth of knowledge and explains each step in detail, with the occasional amusing anecdote that explains the origin of the recipe.

On to the Chicken B’stilla! It’s the Moroccan cousin of chicken pot pie; baked in a cake pan instead of a pie dish, it has layers of phyllo for the crust.

First, I mixed the chicken thighs with onions, garlic, and spices in my cooking pot, and let that hang out and marinade for an hour on the stove (Tip: can also be marinated overnight in the fridge).

Then, it was a matter of pouring in the chicken broth and lemon juice, bringing everything to a boil, and letting the chicken thighs simmer for an hour.

The meat then had to be removed from the bone and shredded, which I nicely asked Boyfriend to do. I think he did a lovely job, don’t you?

I fished out the cooked onions and garlic with a slotted spoon, and then reduced the remaining cooking liquid over medium heat. I’d say it took about half an hour, with periodic scraping of the bottom and sides of the pot to release the flavourful browned bits.

Then the egg-and-honey mixture was gradually whisked in over low heat. Once it looked like thick gravy, I dumped the shredded chicken back into the pot along with some blanched Lacinato kale, and mixed everything together. There aren’t any vegetables in the recipe, and I figured it would be the perfect opportunity to use some of the kale that was languishing in the fridge.

Next was the finicky part: working with phyllo. I bought a $2 package from Akropolis Pastries on the Danforth, which had more than enough sheets. It was my first time working with phyllo, and I thought, how hard could it be?

Well, quite hard considering how fast the paper-thin sheets dry out. I thought I could work quickly enough and skip the process of buttering each sheet, but this was very naive thinking. I ended up with flour all over myself, and had to spray water on the sheets to moisten them back to pliability.

Boyfriend held the pot of filling while I scraped the mixture into the phyllo-lined pan. Then I topped the mixture with sliced almonds that I had toasted earlier in my cast iron pan.

At this point, I was swearing like a sailor, but I managed to cut a rough squarish circle of phyllo sheets for the top layer. I folded the overhang from the bottom layer to close up the pie. After a brushing of melted butter, and another misting of water, the Chicken B’stilla was finally ready to go in the oven.

The top was lightly golden, and I think it could have stayed in for a few more minutes for extra browning. Since I used a springform pan, I just removed the ring and cut slices directly from the base.

So how did it taste? The crisp phyllo was a nice contrast to the creamy and tender chicken, with the kale holding up to the extra cooking. Boyfriend thought it tasted like there were mushrooms in it, which I interpreted as good umami flavour. The bottom layer of phyllo completely melted into the filling, which was fine, if a little messy to transfer the slices from pan to plate.

Would I make it again? Yes, with these lessons learned for next time:

– Make the filling the day before, so one is refreshed and ready for assembling
– Butter the phyllo, one dear-god-it’s-already-drying-up sheet at a time
– Cover the stack of unused phyllo with a damp towel
– Assemble the pie in a cool area, preferably away from the preheating oven
– Pour a glass of wine, and sip before, during, and after