Traditional Tourtière

Some traditions run deep ….

A few weeks ago, I broke with French-Canadian tradition and created a vegetarian tourtière and wrapped it in a gluten-free crust that stole the show. While  the French-Canadian in the family loves her whole grains and veggies, she isn’t a vegetarian and she couldn’t for the life of her figure out why I had done this to her? So as Christmas Eve approached and we prepared for celebrations, she said she was going to go out and buy a gluten-free tourtière … with meat. I told her, I could do this but the sideways look I received suggested she didn’t believe me … and I could see that she wasn’t totally comfortable entrusting a French-Canadian tradition to the hands of an anglophone from Western Canada. Nevertheless, trust me she did …. And so we made a commitment to share in the Christmas Eve tradition with a dear friend of hers (who is a vegetarian) and I promised to bring my second vegetarian tourtière from the freezer and make a traditional meat filled tourtière for Anne.

I knew this was going to be a test … that I’d be cooking against hundreds of years of tradition and, in particular, 40 years of her eating her mother’s tourtière.

(… and I hadn’t even tasted her mother’s tourtière.)

All I had to go on was a decade of eating tourtière myself, some good, some bad, and my own palette. In other words, I was going to jump into the middle of the Atlantic and learn to swim….

So how did it turn out? What metrics does one use to attest to such accomplishments? I said that if I was successful, I wanted honorary French-Canadian citizenship bestowed upon me. Did I get it? Well, when Anne took her first taste and broke out into a huge smile and whispered under her breath that, even though this was my first try, this was better than her mother’s … and I knew I had successfully gained my dual citizenship.

A few key cooking tips: First, I wanted a moist meat pie that wasn’t fatty. My solution, pour off the fat BUT save it in a fat separator. The reason for this is that in pouring off the fat from ground meat, you’re also pouring off ‘water’ and flavour. Proof here that only half the contents is fat. Second, I wanted to use potato as ‘natural’ thickening starch, but I wanted flavour and thickness, so instead of boiling potato and mashing it in, I took a few russet (aka “baking potatoes”) and oven roasted them the night before (bake at 400ºF for 45-55 minutes). This worked perfectly.

Next was the question of the spices. This is definitely where many pies distinguish themselves. I made the decision that I didn’t want an overly ‘spice’ filled meat filling that often robs the palette of the other flavours. This meant no clove. Instead, I opted for the well-rounded flavours of allspice which I grind myself for optimal flavour (easy simple). But the real defining difference was that I choose to also use a cinnamon stick for flavour. A technique I learned from Moroccan cooking, I thought this would be a more subtle way to infuse some ‘spice’ flavours rather than a bunch of ground cinnamon.

Finally, the last decision around technique was the crust, always a challenge when cooking gluten-free. As you can see from my recipe posted previously, I feel confident that I’ve mastered the gluten-free crust … but I wasn’t satisfied with just that. I wanted to see if I could actually get the pure flakiness of a sophisticated tourtière that would use something like a puff pastry to wrap the filling. Could I pull this off with my gluten-free recipe? I rolled it out using similar techniques I’ve seen for creating a layered puff pastry and, incredulously, it worked. The result is hands down the flakiest pastry I’ve personally ever made, with or without gluten. Yes, with or without gluten. It was that good. You can see the flakiness in the picture above to some degree, but the more I ate, the flakier it got. While it is a lot more work, the result is well-worth it and it produced a pie that hearts and cultures together.

Prep Time: 20 minutes (+20 extra minutes for flaky pastry)
Cook Time: 60+40 minutes
Total Time: 2 hours
Yield: 2 Tourtière pies
(feeds 6-8 with sides plus one for the freezer)

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon (12 mL) olive oil
• 2 cups (500 mL) finely chopped onion (1 large onion)
• 2 lbs (900g) ground pork
• 1 lb (450g)) ground veal
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 3-inch cinnamon stick, broken in half
• ¼ tsp (1 mL) ground cinnamon
• 1¼  tsp (6 mL) allspice
• ¼ tsp (1 mL) mace (alternatively: ground clove)
• 1¼  tsp (6 mL) dry mustard
• 2-3 tsp (10-15 mL) salt
• Fresh ground pepper
• 2 large baking/russet potatoes
  → baked, then mashed measuring 1¼ cups
• 2 cups (500 mL) beef stock, plus extra as necessary
• ¼ cup (50 mL) chopped fresh parsley
• Pastry for 2 tops, 2 bottoms
• 1 egg for egg wash

Plus 2 bottom pie crusts and 2 tops to complete. Use my recipe for gluten-free crusts here but follow instructions on rolling below.

Preparation:

1. To make filling, place a stainless steel pan over medium heat and oil. Stir in the onions and brown for about 5 minutes.
   
2. Increase temperature to high and add ground meat and fry, stirring constantly while breaking up the meat into small pieces. Fry for 5-7 minutes or until no pinkness remains.Drain off excess fat and pour into a fat separator … then pour just the juice back into the meat.
   
   • If you don’t have a fat separator and don’t want to go to this trouble, use an extra ¼-½ cup of stock later in the process.
3. Add garlic and parsley, spices, and salt and pepper.
   
4. Cut the baked potato in half and scoop out the potato from skin. Using a potato masher, then, mash the potato till all  the lumps are removed.
   Measure out 1¼ cups and add it to the meat filling and mix in.
   
5. Add 1½ cups of stock to just cover the top of meat.
   Lower the heat to low, cover and let simmer for about 45 minutes and let the meat and onions cook down and spices to marry into the mixture. Check and stir every 15 minutes adding extra stock if it becomes too dry. Re-season if needed to adjust for salt and cinnamon.
6. Discard bay leaves and cinnamon stick(s) and let the meat mixture cool.
   
7. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 450°F (230°C).
8. While the tourtière filling is simmering above, prepare the pastry. The key to making it extra flaky is to do as follows:
   • Spread 1-2 sheets of plastic wrap on your counter, especially if making gluten-free crust, or lightly flour your counter.
     
   • Flatten the dough ball and placing another sheet of plastic over top (or using some extra flour) roll out into a rectangle.
     
   • Lightly dust the pastry with flour
   • and fold into thirds back towards you …
     
   • … and then fold this in half as well.
     
   • Cover again with plastic wrap and rolling away from you, roll it into a rectangle again and follow the steps above, lightly flouring, folding and turning and repeat 5-6 more times.
     
   • Repeat for second bottom and then tops.
9. Place bottoms into relatively shallow and greased pie pans.
   
10. Stir the cooled meat mixture and add more stock as necessary so that it is the consistency of a thick porridge.
    Divide meat mixture over the bottom pastry.
    
11. Roll out the tops now. Wet the edges of the bottoms and place tops on them and cover the meat filling.
    Pinch the edges together. Slice steam vents into the tops.
    Beat the egg and brush over pastry. While optional, it produces a beautiful sheen and colour for the finished product.
    
12. Bake for 15 minutes on the second-lowest rack in your oven. After 15 minutes, reduce heat to 350°F (175°C), remove it from the oven and put foil on the edges of the crust to prevent burning. Return the tourtière to the oven then and bake for an addition 25 minutes … or until the tourtières are a golden brown.
    
13. Cut in slices to serve with Green Tomato Ketchup.