KFC vs. Homemade: Chicken Pot Pie

Some people eat fried chicken for Christmas here – a hilarious almost 50 year old Japanese tradition. Even though my family ate neither turkey nor chicken for Christmas in the US, we recently started our own tradition, I guess, of roasting a whole chicken for Christmas. We don't celebrate the holiday, although it's an excuse to eat fancier foods.

When we have roasted chicken, it's enough for several meals for the two of us, then I usually put the bones and bits into our pressure cooker to make some broth. Around the new year, I use the broth to make chicken based ozoni, which is what my husband grew up with.

This year, I made chicken pot pie using some of the broth first.

It's a food I had never eaten homemade. My family would keep some frozen mini pot pies on hand for when my mum wasn't at home for dinner, which was my only experience until ordering a chicken pot pie in a restaurant several years ago. 

I had heard that the Kentucky chicken cream pot pies are good from someone who eats there often, while I almost never eat fast food and remained skeptical. Anyway, I wasn't about to wait in line for KFC's Christmas bucket or anything, but one tiny shopping mall location wasn't busy after Christmas so I tried one.

I guess it was okay, considering it's fast food. I wasn't impressed with the quantity (the top photo was taken after breaking up the crust and before eating any) but it was filling. For 450 yen each, I'm not going to get one of those barely any chicken pies again. (I also thought the combo meal including french fries and a soft drink would not fit at all.)

I was curious and looked up some homemade recipes. I think that none of the recipes contained corn, which is weird. I got the idea of how to make it after looking at several cast iron pan recipes with no spices other than salt and pepper, and just did my usual thing of not measuring anything. Added some savory herbs and cayenne pepper. It turned out great and has been requested again the next time there's a roast chicken.