Tara O’Brady’s tourtière goes for ground meat all the way with its sweet combination of pork and veal.
Tourtière is fantastic for its straightforwardness. There's no pretense, no fuss, just a lightly spiced meat filling encased in pastry. Done well, it's a glorious thing.
When a pie is so unabashedly bare, it's the details that set it apart. All too often, the pastry is flaccid and depressing, the filling bland or dry (imagine a mouthful of cotton wool). Those tourtières are far from the alluring possibilities of the Québécois tradition.
A proper tourtière is lush and hearty and, while primarily thought of as a Christmas tradition, there is a case for eating it year-round. Tourtière can be served from steaming hot to room temperature, even cold, and it improves with age. It takes beautifully to freezing, and is sturdy enough for transport. Truly, a tourtière is a useful thing to know how to make.
I culled this paper's archives to see how the storied dish had evolved through the years. One recipe from Ann Adam, published March 30, 1964, calls for chicken pieces slowly simmered with chopped pork and seasoned plainly with salt and pepper. Frances MacIlquham's 1975 venison tourtière included allspice and bay leaf, while Max McKenna's recipe from September, 1979, allows for parsley, a bay leaf and a pinch of dried sage.
In contemporary tourtière recipes, spices are the norm. Ricardo Larrivée has a version with hand-chopped pork, rather than ground, flavoured with nutmeg and clove. And, of course, Martin Picard of Au Pied de Cochon currently dominates the tourtière scene. His brawny beauty begins with a braised pork shoulder that's shredded and folded through with ground pork. The long-cooked meats, perfumed with clove and cinnamon, make for a resoundingly full-bodied filling.
In sorting out a tourtière to call my own, I consider St-Hubert's the sentimental archetype; that means ground meat all the way. A combination of pork and veal brings needed fat and a general sweetness, while mushrooms add depth and help keep the mixture from irrevocable density. Combining the old and the new, grated potato and a scattering of oats add further softness, while thyme and dried savory offer an herbal influence. The spicing is unassuming but present.
That said, my tourtière is not without some controversial moves. In a trick lifted from J. Kenji Lopez-Alt's beef and barley soup, Asian fish sauce underscores the mushroom's resonance, and changes the tenor entirely. It's a statement often promised, but holds true here – the filling won't taste of fish, but rather as somehow more than the sum of its parts.
There is an unmistakable gloss to a sauce based on a proper stock made with bones. To mimic that stickiness, a scant amount of powdered gelatin gives a velvety weight.
In place of the expected tomato relish or ketchup as a companion to the tourtière, I opt for a mustard-heavy cognac cream sauce. The gravy fills any gaps with both voluptuousness and edge. As an aside, for a thicker sauce, sprinkle 1 to 2 teaspoons of flour into the pan after the mustard is added. Cook for 30 seconds, stirring, before pouring in the liquids.
Servings: Serves 6 to 8
Tourtière
1 cup good-quality chicken or veal stock, divided
1 tsp powdered gelatin
1 tbsp olive oil
1 lb ground pork, preferably not lean
1 lb ground veal
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, as needed
2 onions, diced
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 cup cremini or button mushrooms, diced
6 thyme sprigs, leaves picked off
1 bay leaf
1/2 tsp dried summer savory
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
A good pinch ground allspice, optional
1/2 tsp Asian fish sauce
1 small mashing or baking potato, peeled and grated (russet or Yukon gold, or similar)
1/4 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
Flour, for work surface
1 recipe pie dough (pâte brisée or shortcrust), enough for a double-crust 9-inch pie
1 egg, beaten with 1 tsp milk or cream
Tourtière sauce
For the sauce:
1 tsp powdered gelatin
1 1/2 cups good-quality chicken or veal stock, divided
2 rashers thick-cut bacon
4 shallots, roughly chopped
2 tbsp cognac or bourbon
2 tbsp Dijon mustard
1 cup apple cider
2 thyme sprigs
1/4 cup heavy cream
Method
Pour 1/4 cup stock in a small bowl. Sprinkle the gelatin over top and leave to soften. Set aside the remaining stock.
In a large, high-sided skillet or casserole over medium heat, warm the olive oil. When hot, tumble in the meats and season lightly with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring and crumbling the meat with the back of a spoon, until no longer pink but not sizzling, about 8 to 10 minutes. Tip in the onion, garlic and mushrooms and cook for 5 minutes more, stirring regularly. Scatter the thyme over the meat, then tuck in the bay leaf. Stir in the savory, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and fish sauce. Pour the reserved stock into the pot, and once boiling, stir in the gelatin mixture. Lower the heat to maintain a simmer and partially cover the pan. Allow the meat mixture to burble away gently for 30 minutes, stirring regularly.
Fold the potato and oats into the meat mixture, and cook for 10 minutes more. Check for seasoning, allow the mixture to cool, then cover and chill for at least 1 hour but preferably longer, up to overnight.
On a lightly floured surface, roll half the dough out to a 12-inch circle. Fit the round snugly into a 9-inch pie tin. Fill the shell with the meat mixture, packing it tightly and mounding slightly toward the centre. Pop the pie into the fridge while you roll out the remaining dough to another 12-inch round. Brush the edge of the filled shell with beaten egg, then lay the second dough round on top to cover, pressing edges together to seal. Trim away any excess dough so that the pastry only slightly overhangs the rim. Working your way around the tin, roll and tuck the edges of the pastry under, forming a raised edge. Crimp as desired. Cut a hole in the centre of the pastry, or a couple of slits to release steam, and decorate if so moved. Anoint the crust with more egg, followed by a miserly seasoning of salt and pepper. Refrigerate the pie for 1 hour.
Preheat oven to 400 F, with a rimmed baking sheet set on a rack in the lower third.
Bake the pie on the preheated baking sheet for 30 minutes, then lower the oven temperature to 350 F. Continue to bake the tourtière until the pastry is golden and the filling is hot and bubbling, 45 minutes more or thereabouts. Let stand 20 minutes before serving.
While the tourtière is baking, make the sauce. In a small bowl, bloom the gelatin in 1/4 cup stock as before. Set aside.
In a skillet over medium heat, fry the bacon, turning periodically. Once the bacon is golden and its fat has rendered, about 5 to 8 minutes, remove and reserve for another use (in other words, eat it as a cook’s treat). Add the shallots to the pan and cook, stirring often, until deeply coloured and soft, about 10 minutes.
With a lid nearby and the skillet off the heat, pour the cognac into the pan. Still off the heat, carefully set the alcohol vapours aflame with a match, then return the pan to the heat, shaking the pan constantly until the flames subside. Stir in the mustard, let it fry for a few seconds, then follow with the remaining stock, the apple cider and the gelatin mixture. Once bubbling, pop in the thyme sprigs and lower the heat. Simmer until the sauce is the consistency of maple syrup, 12 to 15 minutes more.
Strain through a fine-meshed sieve, pressing the shallots to extract as much liquid as possible. Return the sauce to the pan, stir in the cream, then bring back up to a simmer for 5 minutes, stirring. Season with salt and pepper. Serve hot alongside the tourtière.