Notes on Pot Pies

The term "pot pie" is used to refer to several related savory dishes.    The construction of these dishes differ both in the nature of the "crust" and the type of filling used.    I don't use the term to refer to pies which are made by folding a pastry around a filling (e.g. an empanada or a pasty).    For that, I use the term meat pie for that.   I'll try to give a sense of the range of variation that pot pie refers to.

Crusts for pot pies can be complete or incomplete.    A complete crust encloses the filling.    Typically, the bottom crust is placed in the pie pan, the filling is placed in the bottom crust, and a top crust, made of the same material as the bottom crust, is placed on top of the filling.    When make from a pie crust or pastry, I'll refer to this as a pot pie sensu Swanson, because it is like the commercial frozen pot pies we grew up with.    By contrast, when a pot pie has an incomplete crust, the filling is placed in the pan and the crust is placed over the filling.

Crusts can also vary in how they are made.    The simplest is to use a standard pie (i.e. pastry) crust.    This is often used for complete crusts.    Other crusts used, especially for incomplete crusts, include biscuit, corn bread, dumpling or mashed potato crusts.

Fillings vary even more than crusts.    These include meat and vegetables in a gravy or sauce, meat and vegetables without a sauce, chopped vegetables held together by egg custard, vegetables held together with cheese and others.