Superabundant dispatch: Chicken pot pie with buttermilk drop biscuit topping and this week’s news nibbles - OPB

OPB’s “Superabundant” explores the stories behind the foods of the Pacific Northwest with videos, articles and this weekly newsletter. Every week, Heather Arndt Anderson, a Portland-based culinary historian, food writer and ecologist, highlights different aspects of the region’s food ecosystem. This week she offers a recipe for chicken pot pie with a buttermilk drop biscuit topping.

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In a regular November week like this one, without any big news in the headlines or anything, it’s always a good idea to keep a few cozy comfort dishes at the ready this time of year. Honestly, all I want right now is a trough of mashed potatoes and gravy, but I guess it’s a good idea to get some other-colored vegetables and lean protein to “stay healthy” or whatever. Luckily, comfort food doesn’t require a ton of time or effort to be satisfying. Sure, nothing hits like Nonna’s all-day Sunday gravy or a slow-cooked pot roast, but an inexpensive, one-pot meal that comes to the table in under an hour can still nourish your body and soul (especially when it makes lots of leftovers). Chicken soup in various forms is about as global a comfort food as they come, but pretty much anything starchy — whether from potatoes, rice, noodles, bread or dumplings — will generally evoke good vibes. Do you know why? Read on to find out!

It’s officially National Native American Heritage Month! On Saturday, Nov. 9 (11 a.m. to 5 p.m.), come to Director Park to join storyteller Ed Edmo and the drummers of Turquoise Pride in celebrating with Frybread Fest, brought to you in partnership with Portland Indigenous Marketplace. Indigenous pop-up Javelina will be providing frybread. These folks have been featured in past episodes of “Superabundant” and best of all, it’s free!

Carbon-neutral beef and dairy takes another step closer to the dinner table thanks to seaweed. A year ago I shared the report that a Hawaii seaweed company was partnering with Portland-based Neutral in getting reduced-carbon beef and dairy to market (and having had the opportunity to taste-test the beef in a sensory panel, I was relieved to learn that the kelp didn’t affect the flavor at all). Now scientists at Oregon State University are studying Oregon-grown Pacific dulse in reducing methane emissions from cattle. (Of course, Oregon dulse is delicious without being fed to a cow first.)

Anyone who’s gone mushroom picking in hilly terrain has experienced the fae trickery of being lured downslope by *just one more.* This happened to Eugene entomologist Cary Herst, who was out picking chanterelles in the Coast Range when he looked up and realized he’d meandered down into a brushy ravine, far off the trail. Luckily, he was rescued within a few hours (and had a nice haul of chanterelles to show for his trouble) but advises other foragers to occasionally look up and pay attention where you’re going.

The first case of bird flu has been discovered in pigs on a small farm in Crook County. OPB’s Alejandro Figueroa reports that all of the exposed animals were euthanized and the (unnamed, but noncommercial) Central Oregon farm has been quarantined. The Oregon Department of Agriculture has offered assurance that the food supply is safe, but health officials recommend fully cooking meat and eggs just in case. Avian flu was also documented at a Clackamas County egg farm last month.

In case you needed a reminder to take it easy, it’s better for soil microfauna and other friendly neighborhood invertebrates if you leave the leaves instead of trying to keep the yard too tidy. This goes for other garden cleanup, too — leave some dead seed heads for the birds to nibble, and unless you’re planning a winter vegetable bed, don’t rush to pull last season’s crops. If my summer squash, chiles and tomatillo have taught me anything, it’s that November is a gleaner’s paradise.

November isn’t too shabby for foraging, either. OPB’s Director of Corporate Support Marci Ozawa shared that her family found the largest matsutake seen in all the decades they’ve gone mushroom hunting.

Matsutake mushrooms picked in the forests of western Oregon. Note the dinner fork for scale.

Marci Ozawa / OPB

Quinces, persimmons and jewel-like winter squash continue to bowl me over with their ability to complement a roast or a cheesecake with equal aplomb and make the house look festive while they’re doing it. Speaking of quinces, last weekend’s Quince Fest was an utter delight — the best thing I tasted was a quince curd-filled paczki from Babcia Bread and fresh-pressed quince juice that was as sweet and fragrant as a rose. I’m definitely going to copy that curd!

✨ Folks, there’ve been a lot of meals in bowls this week.

✨To make the most of the odds and ends from the garden and larder, I whipped up a pot of hearty minestrone and toasted mortadella sandwiches with sauteed peppers and onions, mozzarella and charred escarole on mini banh mi rolls. Never sleep on escarole! It’s both versatile and durable — a too-rare combination in greens.

✨ Sibeiho co-founder (and chili crab sorceress of our Dungeness crab episode) Holly Ong got her hands on a bunch of locally hunted teal ducks and shared two of them with me, pre-roasted with five spice. After picking and shredding the meat, I smoked the carcass over black tea and dried orange peel and used it to make stock for wonton noodle soup. Holly said she was going to make some duck stock for congee.

✨ On Election Day, I stress-ate a warm bowl of tender borlotti beans with sour cream from a local creamery. It was also covered in canned nacho cheese and two packets of Taco Bell Diablo sauce and I ate it with half a pillowcase-sized bag of tortilla chips. (To be fair, I’d also eat this on a non-Election Day, it is a solid lunch.)

Election week got you stressed? Don’t worry, it’s comfort food season — carbs are your friend and a pot pie topped with biscuits is still a pot pie.

Heather Arndt Anderson / OPB

This time of year, plates and forks just don’t see a ton of action — it’s all about bowls and spoons during comfort food season. I know I talk a lot about cutting yourself some slack, the transgressive joy of eating your feelings (self care and self harm can look pretty similar, depending on how much Diablo sauce you put on your Election Day nacho bowl) and the mental health benefits of cake, but it’s not just a bunch of touchy-feely nonsense: carbs make us happy.

I have decades of science to back me up. First, the olfactory bulb in your nose is attached to your limbic system — smells get stored in your memory banks along with all those warm and fuzzies about your grandma. Comfort foods reinforce our feelings of security and belonging in healthy relationships, strengthening community and family ties.

Carbs increase the amount of tryptophan that our brains can turn into serotonin and melatonin, two different hormones associated with being in a very chill mood. (It turns out it’s the stuffing, not the turkey, that makes us sleepy after a holiday meal.) Carbs impact the quality of our sleep, too — a recent study points to the role carbs play in the brain’s ability to enter the restorative REM stage during sleep.

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but just because you’ve added melted cheese, soft white carbs or gravy to a dish, that doesn’t automatically make it any less wholesome. Indulgence can coexist with salubrity! This is why vegan fast food is booming and why athleisure wear isn’t going anywhere!

One of my favorite ways to live this ethos is to take a few shortcuts with otherwise from-scratch cooking. I’m not saying to channel mid-century cookbook authors like Poppy Cannon or Peg Bracken and base meals entirely off of processed convenience foods, I’m just saying that white cake from a boxed mix tastes really nice smeared with homemade loganberry jam. A rich and creamy gravy doesn’t destroy the nutritional content of a bowl of chicken and vegetables. Beans are just as tender from a countertop pressure cooker as they are from a slow simmer in a clay pot.

This is my approach to a pot pie: make a big vat of creamy gravy with lots of chunky ingredients because stirring a cauldron with a wooden spoon is fun. Don’t bother making a pie crust if it’s a hassle — use drop biscuits instead. (Or store-bought biscuits from a tube!)

Ignore haters who say it’s not really a pot pie if it has a biscuit topping and no bottom crust. (Oh, “it’s a stew topped with a lie,” is it, Shawna? By that logic, is it still a pot pie if it’s not cooked in a pot? Is shepherd’s pie also a lie??) Serves 6-8

Note: You can also use a store-bought pie crust if the lack of pastry is a deal-breaker. I don’t make the rules, I just like the dumpling-adjacency of gravy-soaked biscuits.

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 ½ pounds skinless boneless chicken thighs, cut into bite-sized pieces

Salt and pepper

1 cup chopped white or yellow onion

2 large carrots, peeled and cut into bite-sized pieces

2 ribs celery, cut into bite-sized pieces

3 large button mushrooms, cut into bite-sized pieces

½ cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon onion powder

1 teaspoon garlic powder

4 cups chicken broth

1 cup whole milk or half and half

1 sprig each sage and thyme (or ½ teaspoon poultry seasoning)

2 medium-sized waxy potatoes, diced

1 cup green beans, cut into bite-sized pieces

1 cup frozen peas

1 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon fine sea salt

6 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into ½ inch pieces

¾ cup buttermilk

1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley

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