Why Pennsylvanian Chicken Pot Pie Might Confuse You At First

When you think of chicken pot pie, you probably get the same feeling as when you curl up in a soft blanket next to a cozy fire on a frigid day. You can picture yourself folding back the flaky, buttery crust to reveal a steaming vessel of chicken morsels and sweet carrots, peas, and onions enveloped in a thick, savory stew. That's comfort food magic.

But if you go to Pennsylvania, it may not happen that way. That's because the inhabitants of the Keystone state defer to a recipe with its roots in the cooking habits of the Pennsylvania Dutch. It features a similarly hearty mixture of chicken, veggies, and thick broth. But gone is the tender, flavorful crust, replaced by thick hand-rolled "noodles."

It's not necessarily less work than a from-scratch chicken pot pie, but it may still be easier for those who consider a butter pie crust their culinary nemesis. And it's certainly just as warm, comforting, and satisfying as the version the rest of us know and love.

This method is strikingly similar to a version of Southern chicken and dumplings or chicken and pastry (though that typically doesn't have veggies like peas and carrots). While some people make chicken and dumplings with rounded pieces of a drop biscuit-like dough, others use a dough they roll out and cut into squares.

Those flat dumplings are similar in appearance to the Pennsylvania Dutch noodles, though Pennsylvanians roll theirs thinner, thus the term "noodle" rather than "dumpling." The ingredients are also slightly different. The Pennsylvania pot pie recipe's noodles typically contain egg as an enrichment in addition to butter and milk, making them more like a thick, rustic egg noodle.

Even when Southerners make flat dumplings, they typically skip the egg and may even include chemical leavening agents like baking soda or baking powder. The method yields a pastry that's flatter than a drop dumpling, but it's still very much a dumpling, and the leavening agent ensures it puffs up a bit more than a Pennsylvania noodle. That means lovers of Southern-style chicken and dumplings will probably also like the Pennsylvania Dutch recipe. It also means people who can't stand dumplings because of the soft, sometimes gummy texture may actually like Pennsylvania chicken pot pie.