Inn The Kitchen: Making Tourtiere

I recently posted a recipe for Tourtiere, a French-Canadian meat pie recipe that my Grandmother makes around the holidays. I invited her over to my home so we could have a little family time in my kitchen while she helped me create a visual to the recipe. I learned a couple more tips and also some things to do differently next time.

La Ingredients ...

Before you begin ... peel, cut and chop your potatoes. We used 3 pounds of potatoes, but when it was all said and done, we realized we could have added another pound. You could also use "instant" mashed potatoes if you need to save time, but taking this extra step makes for a better texture.

Here is the filling starting to simmer ...

Without adding any of the spices, this already smells delish!
I strained the broth into a glass bowl for later use ...

With the meat pie filling set aside, we added the potatoes and onions back into the same pot with some fresh cold water and a tinsy bit of the broth left over from the meat to add flavor.

The spices ... I only had whole cloves, so I used my mortar and pestle to grind them up. Mixing the dry spices together before adding to the meat pie filling helps make the flavor more even throughout the pie.

After adding all ingredients back to the pot, instead of using a large spoon (which required more bicep strength than I or my grandmother have) we used a hand mixer.

Almost done! Here are the naked pies ... before we covered them with their next crust.

Here we used a dish of fresh cold water and blotted it onto the edge of the crust with our fingers to moisten it and get it ready to seal on the top crust.

Normally my Grandmother just slices a cross in the center for ventilation, however, I found these fantastic mini cookie cutters last year that I thought would add a cute little touch. Unfortunately, my "leaves" ended up looking like stars instead. So we'll have a patriotic-looking Thanksgiving dish. What the heck?! I also went a little overboard in my excitement with the cookie cutter. When I turned the pie around, I realized I inadvertently made a Christmas tree shape. Oops! No ... wait ... I meant to do that! For Thanksgiving, I would probably just cut three leaves (stars) in the center.

Here she is ... all warm and toasty out of the oven. Mmm.

The cookie cutter shapes worked better with the jellied cranberry sauce.

Voila! Homemade Tourtiere with sliced jellied cranberry sauce. I'll be adding another recipe for homemade cranberry sauce. You will not believe how easy it is!

--Rachelle
Tremain Street Cottages