One tradition that my family has always enjoyed every Christmas is that of making a traditional French Canadian Tourtiere. It just would not be Christmas without it. There are actually two kinds of tourtiere and this is the more common one which I am sharing with you today. Traditionally it would be served for Reveillon. This was a Christmas supper that would be served in French Canadian homes after church on Christmas Eve.
In my father's family they would come home from church and enjoy a feast. Santa would have come. People would celebrate all night and then go to bed in the wee hours of the morning.
We never actually did this in our family. (Not that we children would not have minded getting our gifts on Christmas eve or staying up all night) Instead we always enjoyed this delicious meat pie on Boxing Day.
This year my sister and I are making two kinds of Tourtiere. This more common one, and one from my father's childhood region of Quebec, called Tourtiere Lac St Jean. Both are delicious.
This one I am sharing today consists of ground pork. The other consists of three types of cubed meat (deer, rabbit, moose) which is soaked in salt water with potatoes and onions overnight and then slowly baked in a rich pastry all day in a low oven.
Nowadays we use pork, beef and chicken. My father has been requesting it, so this year we are making both.
The first one we are making is the one with ground pork. We had a really difficult time finding ground pork in our local grocery stores. We really searched to no avail. Finally we bought a large quantity of cubed pork for stew.
I ground it using a grinding attachment for the Kitchen Aid Mixer. The Kitchen Aid was a recent gift from a friend. (Thank you Jan!) I think I have used it almost every day. When we had problems getting the ground pork, we ended up buying the grinding attachment. It worked really well!
Other than the ground meat the filling consists of a quantity of finely chopped aromatics. Onions, celery, parsley. This is authentic.
I have seen many people make a tortiere and it will be filled with huge chunks of things, including potato. That is not the way we do it. Everything is minced. We do add potato, but it is used to thicken the filling and is peeled and grated.
In ours there are no discernable lumps of anything in the pie. Not so's you can pick them out. I have seen people adding tomatoes and all sorts, but that's not how we do it, and in my humble opinion its not a tortiere with those things in it.
We were carefully scrutinized through the whole process by our resident judges. That's Gary on the left and Pumpkin on the right. They are always handy in the kitchen watching and making sure we do things just right!
This meets with their approval.
The meat gets simmered on top of the stove with a quantity of stock, some herbs, the onion, celery, seasonings and a bay leaf. You simmer it for about half an hour or so.
At the end of that time you can grate in the potato and simmer it for a bit longer. the potato helps to thicken it nicely, but because it is grated it breaks down beautifully and you don't end up with any lumps.
You end up with a beautiful thick filling, that has lovely flavours. We like to refrigerate it overnight so that it is cold when we put it into our pastry. Hot filling would start to melt the pastry and give you a soggy bottom.
There is nothing worse than a soggy bottom in a pie. Just ask Mary Berry. As you can see you can just barely detect the onion and celery in this filling, and you can't see any potato at all.
We used our favorite Butter and Lard pastry for this. It is a beautiful pastry. So tender and flaky. I use it for all my pies now, both sweet and savoury.
It is perfect for tourtiere. When making it for a sweet pie, you can add a bit of sugar to it, but for something like tourtiere, you leave it just as it is.This is our favorite all purpose pastry. We use it for everything.
This year we made twice the filling. We are making two smaller (7 inch pies) and five single pies. We also doubled the pastry.
I like to glaze my pies with an egg yolk and water glaze. This gives them a nice color and sheen. They just look rich and lovely. They are rich and lovely.
We enjoy them hot with tomato ketchup, cranberry chutney, or tomato preserves. A bit of salad on the side and we are in meat pie heaven. I like tomato ketchup with mine. I lift the crust off the top of my slice and put the ketchup in between the crust and the meat.
My favorite bit is that spot where the bottom crust meets the top crust and the two are folded together. It is meaty and rich and a bit crusty/crispy. Yum!!
French Canadian Tourtiere
Yield: 1 9-inch pieAuthor: Marie RaynerThis has been a Christmas tradition in my family for many years. To me, this is the authentic pie. No bells and whistles. Simple ingredients put together well.Ingredients
For the filling:- 1 pound (500g) lean ground pork
- 2 medium potatoes, peeled and grated
- 1 small onion, peeled and finely minced
- 1 stick celery, finely minced
- small handful of flat leaf parsley, finely minced
- 1 garlic, cloved peeled and minced
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 bay leaf, broken
- 1/2 tsp summer savoury
- 1/4 tsp ground cloves
- pepper to taste
- 1/2 cup beef stock
- 2 cups all purpose flour (280g)
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/3 cup butter (76g)
- 1/3 cup lard (or white vegetable shortening) (74g)
- 5 to 6 tablespoons of ice water
Instructions
- To make the filling, place all the ingredients with the exception of the potato into a saucepan. Bring to the boil, stirring to break up the meat into small pieces. Cover and simmer on low for 30 minutes. Uncover and grate in the peeled potato. Cover and simmer for a further 15 to 20 minutes until thick and cooked through. Remove from the heat. Taste and adjust seasoning as desired. Cool completely. (I usually make the filling the night before and refrigerate.
- To make the pastry, mix flour with salt, and cut in butter and lard, until you have pieces of fat in the flour about the size of peas. (Use a pastry blender or two round bladed knives.)
- Add ice water, one TBS at a time, tossing it in with a fork until pastry comes together. Shape into a ball and cut in two pieces. Form each piece into a round flat disc. Wrap in cling film and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
- On a lightly floured surface, roll one of the discs into a 12 inch circle. Use this to line a 9 inch pie plate.
- Spoon in the cooled filling.
- Roll the remaining pastry intoa circle large enough to cover the top. Seal, trim and flute the edge. Cut a few vent slits in top and then brush with an egg wash, consisting of 1 egg yolk beaten together with 1 tsp water.
- Bake in a pre-heated 200*C/400*F oven for 25 to 30 minutes until golden brown and the pastry is crisp on the bottom. Let stand 20 minutes before cutting, or allow to cool completely, wrap tightly in cling film and then foil wrap and store in the freezer until needed.
Did you make this recipe?
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Hopefully this next week I will be able to share the Lac St Jean Tourtiere with you. That one is mighty tasty also!
Just to note, today we used five pounds of home ground pork and increased the other ingredients accordingly. We got two large tourtiere and four small 5 inch Tourtiere from it. Delicious.
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