I am so excited to share with you my family’s tourtière recipe; our favourite Christmas meal that we have been making from scratch and eating on Christmas Eve since before I was born.
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What is French Canadian Meat Pie?
Tourtière, or meat pie, has been a French Canadian traditional food for hundreds of years. In some families, it is eaten often but most commonly it was always had after Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. Historically, it has been made with many game meats, but it is commonly made with pork today.
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Our Family History of Tourtière
Thanks to my parents’ amazing geneology skills, we now know for sure and certain that my mother’s family was Acadie, or Acadian. But we were eating tourtière before we knew our family history.
It began back when my mom was in high school. She had an opportunity to travel to Quebec on an exchange program with the intent of immersing Canadians into different cultures within the country. She stayed in St-Gabriel-de-Brandon, on a lake and the family she stayed with had tourtière for a meal. It was love at first bite!
Perhaps just for the tourtière, or maybe really to improve her French, my mother did a second exchange in university. Staying at in Trois-Rivière, she sought out the amazing tourtière at every chance she got.
Finding the perfect Recipe
Remember, this was in ye olden days before the Internet, so in order to actualize her dreams of making her own meat pie, my mom had to find it in a cookbook.
She found it in Purity cookbook, but there definitely was not enough seasoning in that version of the recipe. Once my parents were married, and were establishing their own family traditions, they adopted tourtière as their Christmas Eve meal.
So throughout my childhood, growing up we always made tourtière on Christmas Eve.
My husband’s family is French-Canadian on his mother’s side. In their family, they got together and made tourtière in the late autumn. All the cousins would come over and make dozens and dozens of pies and stock everyone’s freezers.
I got to be there a couple of times for this and it was amazing! Even better to have your freezer stocked with meat pies all winter. But, make sure you taste your meat before filling dozens of pies!
A note on seasoning the pork pie
The seasonings really make this recipe, so don’t skimp on them and be sure to taste the meat. It should small and taste mouthwateringly delectable as it simmers on your stovetop!
I like about 1 tsp of high quality salt per pound of meat. If I only had table salt on hand I would likely use less.
It is all about the cloves. They really are so good in meat, they add some je ne sais quois; seriously, just try it.
This is a really simple, relaxed recipe. You could add celery if you like, or leave out the garlic. It’s up to you!
Oh, and I am pretty sure last year I added some nutmeg, but that may be a bit niche. Let me know if you try it!
Here’s my family recipe for French Canadian Tourtière.
First, make the pie crust. I am gluten intolerant, but I have found that I do well with einkorn flour (which has really weak gluten structure). I love Einkorn for this hearty, wholesome family meal.
What to Serve With Tourtière
Here are some side dishes to serve with tourtière.
- baked beans (this is the traditional side dish and we always do it)
- pickled beets
- beet salad with feta
- green leafy salad with maple balsamic vinaigrette
Make-Ahead Meals
Tourtière is one of my most favourite “fast food” slow food meals. You can easily make these ahead of time and freeze them, provided they are well wrapped in plastic wrap. When you need an easy supper on the table, simply pull one out of your freezer and unwrap it, and bake at 350 F for about an hour, or until heated through. Remember, all that meat is precooked so you are just re-heating.
You can also freeze and re-heat leftovers, but they may dry out, so add a splash of water and cover with foil if you want to do this.
You can make this with any amount of meat.
Per pound of ground pork, you use about:
- 1 clove of garlic
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 tsp thyme
- 1/4 tsp ground cloves
- 1/4 tsp black pepper
If I were making a double sized pie in my big cast iron pan, I would use 3 lbs of meat, 3 tsp of salt, and so on. And I would not forget to double my pie crust recipe, (haha).
How to make Tourtière (Pork Pie)
First, make your favourite pie crust (be sure there is enough for a bottom and top of the pie). I love einkorn pie crust because I can actually digest it. After over a decade of rice flour pie crusts my heart is in bliss mode!
Now it is time to make the meat pie filling.
You will need
- ground pork, or you can use a mixture of ground pork and ground beef, or venison. Here I used 2/3 pork and 1/3 beef.
- finely diced onion
- minced garlic
- filtered water
- bay leaf
- high quality salt
- thyme
- cloves
- pepper
Method
It really couldn’t be easier. Put all your ingredients in a pot. Bring it to boil and brown the meat, stirring. The water will help the ground meat break up nicely.
Cover, reduce heat and simmer for 45 minutes. Remove bay leaf. Fill your pie crust, being sure to add some of the juices.
Top your pie crust. We like to decorate ours with mini cut outs. Here I did some Christmas trees by hand. Be sure to add that egg wash, and bake at 350 F for 45 minutes, or a bit longer if you made a bigger pie.
See the recipe card below.
Tourtiere (French Canadian Meat Pie)
This rustic tourtière recipe is the perfect make-ahead Christmas Eve comfort food. I like to make a few at a time so I can freeze some!
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 lbs ground pork or your choice of ground meat
- 1 c finely diced onion
- 1-2 cloves of minced garlic
- 1/2 c filtered water
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 1/2 tsp high quality salt
- 2 tsp thyme
- 2 tsp thyme
- 1/2 tsp cloves
- 1/2 tsp cloves
- 1/2 tsp pepper
- 1/2 tsp pepper
Instructions
- Prep your 9 inch pie crust ahead.
- Put all the meat pie ingredients in a pot.
- Bring it to boil and brown the meat, stirring. It should be a little soupy and break up well because of the water.
- Cover, reduce heat and simmer for 45 minutes.
- Remove bay leaf.
- Fill your prepared, unbaked pie crust.
- Top with the other pie crust. Using fork or your fingers, crimp the edges. Trim the excess with a knife. Cut vents for steam.
- Egg wash the crust (optional, but makes a huge difference!).
- Bake for 45 mins at 350 F.
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