Some recipes you take for granted. They appear at holidays and special gatherings, as ingrained in the festivities as a decorated evergreen or a lighted menorah. These recipes carry emotional weight; they put the assembled in the right frame of mind.
In my family, one of these recipes is tourtière, a spiced meat pie that was always served on either Christmas Eve or New Year’s Day, and never at any other time of year. In French Canadian and French households, tourtière is often part of the late-night Christmas Eve feast known as réveillon, which awaited families returning from midnight Mass. In our house it was made in a nod to my maternal French Canadian roots, first by my mèmere and then by my mother and her sisters.
My mother has been dead two years — no time, forever — and though I’ve been missing her for that long, it took until this December for me to miss tourtière, to realize that it’s now up to me to carry on the tradition. There was one problem: I didn’t have the recipe. Somehow, it never occurred to me to ask her to write it down, even though we are a family of cooks. I guess I just assumed that she’d always be around to make it.
So I asked my aunts to share their recipes, using them as a starting point, and then did what cooks do, which is to reverse-engineer the recipe until it tastes like how it’s remembered.
The meat filling, typically a combination of ground pork and beef or veal, is generously spiced, almost like country pâté. Some versions use only dried spices, but I add fresh sage and thyme, along with the nutmeg and allspice, to brighten up a very stick-to-your-ribs pie. The meat is bound by mashed potato in our family’s version, though I’ve also seen versions with cubed potato, then the filling is baked in a flaky pastry crust. You can use your favorite pie crust, though for tourtière I like one made with a combination of butter, for flake and flavor, along with a bit of shortening, for tenderness.
To counteract the pie’s richness, I always serve something tart alongside. It might be a tangle of salad with a bracing vinaigrette, or some whole berry cranberry sauce, or pickled red onions, all of which are a welcome foil.
Tourtière is a decidedly humble dish, especially for something served at the holidays, but somehow it feels decadent and special, too. When I make it this year, I’ll be continuing a generations-old tradition in my family. If you make it for the first time, you might be starting one in yours.
Jessica Battilana is a San Francisco freelance writer and the author of “Repertoire: All the Recipes You Need.” Email: food@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jbattilana
Tourtière
Makes one 9-inch tart; serves 6
Crust
3 cups (13 ounces) all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt or ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
14 tablespoons (7 ounces) cold, unsalted butter, cut into tablespoons
6 tablespoons (2.5 ounces) vegetable shortening
6 tablespoons ice water
Filling
2 medium Yukon Gold potatoes (about 14 ounces), peeled and cubed
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 medium onions (about 11 ounces), finely diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 pound ground pork
½ pound ground beef
1½ teaspoons Diamond Crystal kosher salt
2 teaspoons minced fresh sage
1½ teaspoons minced fresh thyme
½ teaspoon ground black pepper
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
¼ teaspoon ground allspice
1 large egg, for egg wash
Flaky salt, such as Maldon, for topping
To make the crust: Combine about two-thirds (about 8 ounces) of the flour, all the sugar and salt in the bowl of a food processor and pulse to combine. Add the butter and shortening and pulse until the dough begins to clump, about 20 pulses. Add the remaining flour and pulse until the butter pieces are the size of chickpeas, then pulse in the ice water until the dough begins to gather in a very shaggy mass. Turn out half of the dough onto a sheet of plastic wrap and use it to gather the shaggy mass into a cohesive disk. Wrap the disk tightly and flatten it to an even thickness. Repeat with the remaining dough. Refrigerate the dough for at least 1 hour; dough can be refrigerated for up to four days or frozen for up to 3 months; thaw overnight in the fridge before using.
To make the filling: Put the potatoes in a medium saucepan and add cold water to cover. Bring to a boil over high heat and generously salt the water. Boil until the potatoes are soft, about 10 minutes, then drain, transfer to a large bowl and mash with a potato masher.
In a large frying pan heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onions, garlic and a few generous pinches of salt and cook, stirring, until the onions are soft but not browned, about 6 minutes. Add the pork, beef, 1½ teaspoons salt, sage, thyme, pepper, nutmeg and allspice and cook, breaking up the chunks of meat with a wooden spoon, until the meat is cooked through and most of the liquid has cooked off, about 8 minutes. Add the meat mixture to the mashed potato and mix well to combine. Season to taste with additional salt and pepper and let cool completely (the meat mixture can be made a day ahead; let cool to room temperature, then cover and refrigerate).
To assemble the pie: Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and arrange a rack in the center. On a lightly floured work surface with a lightly floured rolling pin, roll one disk of dough into an 11-inch circle. Transfer the dough to a deep 9-inch tart pan with a removable bottom or a deep pie plate, working it into the corners and leaving the overhanging dough. Fill the pie with the meat mixture, smoothing it into an even layer. Roll out the second pie of dough and top the pie, crimping the two pieces of dough together. If using a tart pan, use the rolling pin to roll over the top of the tart pan to trim the overhanging dough. If you’re using a pie plate, trim the overhanging dough with scissors or a knife, press together to seal, then crimp the edge. If you’d like, you can cut decorative shapes from the extra dough that you trim off.
In a small bowl, whisk together the egg and 1 teaspoon of water to make an egg wash. With a pastry brush, brush the egg wash over the surface of the tart. (If you’ve cut out decorative pastry shapes, place them on the surface of the egg-washed tart, then brush them with additional egg wash.) Sprinkle the tart with flaky salt and use the tip of a sharp knife to cut a few steam vents in the center.
Place the tourtière on a rimmed baking sheet and transfer to the oven. Bake until the pastry is deep golden brown, about 50 to 55 minutes. Remove from the oven, transfer to a rack and let cool slightly. Unmold (if you’ve used a tart pan) and then cut into wedges and serve. tourtière can be baked ahead; rewarm in a 300 degree oven for about 20 to 25 minutes before serving.
The Link LonkDecember 18, 2020 at 11:00PM
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This savory meat pie is a cheery indulgence for Christmas Eve - San Francisco Chronicle
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