After appearing on the second season of Next Level Chef, Mehreen Karim has been on the pop-up circuit in Brooklyn with events and residencies at Winona’s, Sami & Susu, Farm to People and, currently, Little Egg. At these events, many of her dishes draw on South Asian and Southeast Asian influences, like steak au poivre with tamarind and chaat masala corn ribs.
To stretch a single rotisserie chicken into something that can feed a crowd, Karim opts for potpie and draws on Bengali chicken korma as inspiration for her filling. After frying shallots until they’re thoroughly browned, Karim blitzes them into a paste with the skin from the rotisserie chicken. She uses this paste to add flavor to the roux that will form the base of her korma.
The chicken korma relies on aromatics. “When I think about the equivalent of a mirepoix is in South Asian cooking or Bangladeshi food, [it’s] onion, ginger, garlic,” Karim says. Karim cooks these down before adding carrots, celery, and stock, letting the gravy thicken, and adding in the torn rotisserie chicken.
Karim adds the filling to a pastry dish and tops it with shingled heart-shaped pieces of puff pastry. “Because that’s how it feels when you eat a potpie,” she says.
Watch the latest episode of Give a Chef to see how Karim transforms a store-bought rotisserie chicken into chicken korma potpie.
