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At Beer and Iron, we’re here to rescue comfort food from the ordinary – armed with a trusty cast iron pot, a bottle of beer, and a whole lot of rustic charm. We blend bold flavors, real-life stories, and a dash of kitchen mischief to serve up meals that are as fun to make as they are to eat. We’ll bring honest cooking, hearty laughs, and recipes that’ll have you saying, “I can totally make that!” Whether you’re cooking over a campfire or your kitchen stove, we’re all about turning everyday meals into legendary bites, with a little help from our favorite brew and the timeless magic of cast iron.
This is the spirit of Beer and Iron (pun intended).
Adding beer to a recipe brings a host of culinary perks – it boosts flavor, improves texture, and adds an inviting aroma, all thanks to beer’s unique blend of alcohol, water, sugars, acids, and those signature bitter notes. Honestly, it’s the secret ingredient that’ll have your meal brewing with deliciousness!
Beer and Iron moves past the traditional Irish Beef and Guinness Stew. We’ll transform all kinds of dishes with beer as an ingredient to bring out those bold flavors, tender textures, and just add a little palate pleasing magic to each bite. Whether it’s a splash of a smooth porter in your stew, a dash of bock in your bread, or a generous pour of marzen in your marinade, beer’s unique mix of ingredients works wonders beyond what you’d expect. So, get ready to see your favorite comfort foods take on new life, all thanks to a humble bottle of brew and the magic of your trusty cast iron pot.
Beer and Iron Podcast – Episode 3 – Fly in the Pie Chicken Pot Pie
The Opener
Welcome to Beer and Iron—where we talk about real cast iron cooking and share recipes with beer as an ingredient.
Grab a beer, set that cast iron on the heat, and prepare to flip your expectations—we’re serving up tales and recipes that are well-seasoned and never half-baked. This is where the good stories live.
I’m Sulae— Baron of Beer Banter and Tall Tale Tenderizer — here to share a story, cook something worth eating, and bring the yum back to your plate.
The Pour & The Preheat
As mid-Saturday settled in at Grandma Kelly’s kitchen, the dinner ritual began with the soft hiss of gas whispering from the stovetop. She struck a long-stemmed match—a crisp, papery scratch as the match head dragged across the bottom of the wall-mounted match safe. The match hissed softly, its tip glowing with flame. There was a brief pause—a heartbeat of anticipation—as she brought the match’s flame to the gas burner. With a gentle whoosh, a blue and steady flame danced to life. The kitchen was filled with the quiet promise of something delicious about to happen. In this kitchen, the symphony of oven sounds was the dinner bell: a chorus of oven creaks, match strikes, and cast iron thuds against cast iron stove grates. These were the sounds from Grandma Kelly’s kitchen that summoned everyone to the table well before the first ingredient was measured.
I couldn’t resist this call to her kitchen and did my best to keep from getting underfoot. Grandma Kelly loved us all—we knew this—in spite of her being the grumpiest grandmother that ever did live.
Watching her cook was almost as wonderful as the meals she’d created. Grandma Kelly moved around her kitchen like she’d been born in it. She had a way about her in the kitchen that was almost like watching a play or a production…it was so much fun watching her unpredictability that I’m sure the kitchen’s walls themselves leaned in to watch what she’d do next. One thing was for sure, in the next few moments, the whole house would smell like heaven.
That’s when he showed up.
A fly. Not just any fly—this dude had attitude. Circling around the kitchen like he paid rent, zipping past the stove, buzzing, dodging, and showing off more sass than a rooster at sunrise. He had that “I dare you” energy. He hadn’t met Grandma Kelly.
Grandma Kelly didn’t say a word. Not a sigh, not a mutter, not even the classic grandma “tsk.” She just paused to a still, lifted her chin slightly, and watched that fly with the steady patience of a statue in a birdbath.
Then it happened.
She raised that cast iron skillet—the big one, the one that looked like it had been forged in a volcano and seasoned by angels—and with one decisive, kitchen-shaking whack, she brought it down.
Silence.
The fly? Gone. The wall? Slightly offended. The skillet? Somehow it looked better than before, like the impact had buffed it to a higher shine. That was the day I realized two things:
My Grandma Kelly was a fly-killin’ superhero and Cast iron cookware is indestructible—possibly immortal.
Her skillet was seasoned better than most people’s life plans. That deep, glossy black finish didn’t come from fancy oils or “The Joy of Cooking” tips for cast iron maintenance.
It came from decades of frying chicken, searing pork chops, flipping cornbread, and the occasional pest control incident. Thinking back, I never once saw her “properly” season that skillet. Not once.
She’d just use it, wipe it out with an old rag that probably had its own stories, smear a bit of Crisco in the pan, then wipe it again like she was mad at that oil. After that, she’d slide it into that old gas stove to rest until the next meal. No overthinking. No fuss. Just instinct and experience.
While the rest of the world had been switching from cast iron to aluminum, stainless, and Teflon, Grandma Kelly resisted. Even mamma, after an evening of cooking, would let her shiny new pots lounge in the sink overnight, soaking away as if they were being baptized in slow motion. Grandma Kelly didn’t have time for that “burnt-on nonsense.” She stuck with tried and true.
And me? I learned to stay out of her way, respect the skillet, and never underestimate a woman who can take out a buzzing fly mid-flight with an eight-pound, number 12 skillet without breaking a sweat.
The Main Braise
Step by step recipe deep-dive
This here is Grandma Kelly’s “Fly in the Pie” Chicken Pot Pie—don’t worry, the only thing flyin’ in this pie is a little mischief; ain’t no real fly in this pie.
First, grab yourself two chicken breasts. And, you know the problems with chicken breast meat, right? Dry. Easy to overcook. Bland. Grandma Kelly once said, “If you serve dry chicken, don’t bother setting the table—just hand out extra iced tea and apologies.”
For this recipe, we’re going small—think chicken pieces so tender they practically melt into the savory sauce (which, trust me, is worth the wait). If you want the juiciest bites, check out Beer and Iron’s brining and tenderizing tricks from episode 2. But honestly, you can use whatever chicken you’ve got: breast meat from a rotisserie or even leftovers from a whole chicken you roasted earlier.
Wait! What? You’re looking for a recipe for a whole, beer-brined, roasted to a golden brown chicken recipe? What a small world. Yeah. I got a recipe for that too.
Today, I’m starting with raw chicken breast. Just chop it into bite-sized pieces. Think of pecan-sized bites of chicken. If you’re feeling dainty, go with peanut-sized bites or…if you got a mouth like my Uncle Cliff…you’ll need to step up to the walnut-sized cuts. The goal? Chicken that’s ready to soak up every drop of flavor and cut with a spoon.
You’ll want two or three carrots quartered and thinly sliced, about three celery ribs, split long ways and sliced thin, a small onion diced up, and a couple cloves of garlic. If you’re in a hurry, a big ol’ spoonful of jarred garlic…or what I like to call, “jar-lic”…will do just fine.
Don’t forget two cups of frozen peas—there’s really no need to thaw them, but I prefer to have them out and thawing while I am preparing everything else.
For the crust, we’ll use either a frozen pie crust or puff pastry, thawed out and ready. If you’ve got a wild hair and plenty of motivation, a homemade pie crust will really delight ya! Hey! What-a-ya-know! There’s a recipe on Beer and Iron dot com for that too.
And y’all, make sure you’ve got a half cup of flour for dredging the chicken, and another half cup for thickening up that creamy filling.
You’ll need a cup each of chicken broth, milk or cream, and a cup of an easy-drinking lager beer (that’s right, beer—trust me!).
Season it up with half a teaspoon of celery seed, a teaspoon of dried thyme, and a half teaspoon of black pepper; we’ll salt to taste later. And here’s the kicker—a can of olives. That’s your “fly in the pie.” Grandma Kelly always said, “If you’re gonna stir up trouble, make sure it tastes good.”
I’ve given chopped olives a whirl, and while they do the job, those little bits just don’t deliver that classic “fly in the pie” vibe I remember. Whole olives? Forget it—unless you want your pot pie to turn into a tangy minefield! What you really want is a hint of mischief, not a pie packed with olive grenades. Grab a 4.25-ounce can of sliced olives, drain them, and give them a quick, rough chop at home. That way, you get just the right size—big enough for a little drama, but not so bold they steal the show. And if you’re working with pre-chopped olives, don’t worry—they’ll blend in just fine, offering a similar contrast, only with smaller, less “fly-sized” pieces.
Preheat your oven to 375°F—or, for my metric-minded friends, 190°C. Now, here’s the thing: in the good ol’ USA, we like our oven temps nice and tidy, always ending in a zero or five. But the moment you try to convert to Celsius, you get numbers like 191°C, which sounds less like a baking temperature and more like the specifics in a chemistry class. I’m convinced ovens everywhere else don’t even have a 191°C setting—probably just a polite “close enough.” So let’s call it 190°C and move on. There are those oven temperature detectives out there that may be itching to point out my math is off by a degree…not you…but folks we know. Bless their hearts.
I’ll set my 12-inch cast-iron skillet in the oven while it’s preheating and while I prepare all of my other ingredients.
Measure out ½ cup of flour in one bowl and set aside. Cut the chicken into bite sized pieces and add the pieces to this bowl. With this many pieces, most of that ½ cup of flour will be used. Don’t add any left-over flour from this bowl to the recipe. It’ll result in a few doughy lumps when the dish is served.
Measure, prepare each ingredient, and add them to bowls and containers. I’m the kind of cook who likes to have everything lined up like little culinary soldiers—so when the skillet gets hot, it’s showtime, not scramble time.
1. Start by pulling the preheated skillet out of the oven and setting it over medium to medium-high heat. Sear your flour-dusted, bite-sized chicken pieces in a hot skillet with a couple tablespoons of butter until they’re just toasted or golden. Remove the chicken and keep it nearby.
2. Toss in the onions and garlic to deglaze the pan and let their aroma fill the kitchen. Once they are becoming translucent but not so translucent you could read newsprint through them, add the celery, carrots, and the herbs and black pepper—give those carrots a chance to soften before stirring in the peas.
3. Once the carrots are softened a bit, stir in the peas. Give everything a good mix.
4. Lower the heat so nothing scorches while adding the olives and the other ½ cup of flour. Stir again to coat all of the ingredients and to let that raw flour flavor cook out a bit. There’s no specific time this needs to happen in. That raw flavor will cook out as we finish adding ingredients.
5. Pour in the trio of liquids: milk, broth, and beer. Mix well. Now you can turn the heat up just enough to reach a gentle simmer or slow bubble. Be sure to stir once in a while to avoid this thickening sauce from sticking. Yeah…even the best seasoned skillet will grab hold of this thickening sauce.
6. While things are thickening up, cut your dough. If you’re using pie crust, flatten it and cut into squares and irregular half-moons and triangles…the cuts you’d expect from a rounded, flattened, frozen pie crust. If you want a pretty crust, use a rectangle puff pastry sliced it into squares. Set your cuts of dough aside.
7. Let the filling simmer for a bit then taste for saltiness. I don’t initially add salt to this for two reasons: I am using beer-brined chicken, broth, and olives. These all have their own salt. Once things have simmered a bit, the sauce’s salt will balance. It’s best to check at this point. Don’t worry that we’ve waited too long. Remember, this has to bake for a bit before it’s ready. The salt will blend just fine if you need to add some. But…if you’re using this recipe…you’ll do your salt taste test and grin wide as you say, “Yum. PERFECT!” My motto: you can add salt, but you can’t take it out.
8. Once the filling thickens, reduce the heat to low and layer your dough pieces over the top so they overlap just a little. Not like shingles…just lay them starting from the outside and work your way to the inside. I use both pastries from a 2-pastry box when I create this recipe.
9. Remember that egg. Yep. Using a pastry brush, coat the dough pieces with a beaten egg for that glossy wet look.
10. Slide the skillet into the preheated 375°F oven. Bake until the crust is beautifully golden brown and ready to steal the show.
Serve with a story, and enjoy. Each bite is pure comfort food with a wink: flies may buzz, but chicken pot pie in cast iron always wins.
Here’s some culinary trivia for you: Pot Pie vs. Skillet Pie…do you know the difference?
This recipe is a classic Pot Pie because of the crust placement. This has a top crust. We used the puff pastry or pie dough to cover the creamy filling. This makes it a pot pie.
A skillet pie or a meat pie has both a top crust and a bottom crust. Skillet pies and meat pies have fillings that are a bit thicker than the one created in this recipe.
Sure, you could go wild and make a Skillet Pie or a Meat Pie with this same recipe. But, I don’t see why you’d want to do that. We’ve already doubled the pastry on the top. You really won’t be doubling the deliciousness with a third crust or pastry. However, there’s other things that may double…but we ain’t gonna go there…no sir…no ma’am. Y’all’s smart. Y’all know what I mean. Y’all’s my people.
The Clean & The Close
And there you go! Grandma Kelly’s Fly in the Pie recipe. Try it and enjoy it!
For more recipes—including a printable Grandma Kelly’s Fly in the Pie recipe and other cast iron classics—plus video tutorials, check out BeerandIron.com.
Now, y’all don’t be strangers—let me know how yours turns out. You all are welcome to join the conversation. Remember: at beer and iron, there’s always room for one more at our table.
Keep the tradition sizzling and the stories pouring—we’ll see y’all next time on beerandiron.com.